Seoul, Korea, 29 October 2009 – SK Telecom (NYSE:SKM) CEO Man-Won Jung held a press conference today to present progress and achievements on the four missions  he announced in April and unveiled the Industrial Productivity Enhancement (IPE) strategy as the company’s key to future growth.

"SK Telecom will break through stalled growth in the telecommunication market by focusing on providing services that enhance productivity of industries. To this end, we devised the IPE strategy to develop various business models. By doing so, we aim to attain IPE revenue of KRW 20 trillion by 2020 and we hope more than 50% of that revenue will come from our overseas markets," said Jung.

Throughout the year, Jung held more than 40 ’Growth Strategy Meetings’ to seek ideas to achieve the four missions and established SK Telecom’s new vision of ’Global ICT Leader.’ In September, all executives and team leaders of the company gathered to join an event held at Deok-Yu Mountain to renew and strengthen their commitment to achieve this vision.

Jung said the stalled growth in the Korean mobile telecommunications market is caused by heavy dependence on individual customers and therefore will focus on IPE business – i.e. business models that can contribute to enhancing industrial productivity - targeting corporate customers from both industry and public sectors.

According to Jung, SK Telecom’s IPE business will support players in other industries such as finance and distribution to achieve a win-win outcome instead of newly entering into these new business areas.

To this end, the company will make full use of its sensing (RFID, NFC, etc.) and networking (4G, WiFi, Zigbee, etc.) technologies to help strengthen other industries so that they can ultimately experience growth in productivity.

In June, Jung set up Enterprise Business Division. The division chose eight core business items including distribution, logistics, finance, education, healthcare, car manufacture, housing/construction and SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises), and is actively developing business models. 

Jung said that due to the nature of the IPE business, the company cannot disclose details of the progress. However, he cited healthcare as an example and introduced "Personalized and Connected Health Management" strategy that makes full use of cutting-edge ICT. The strategy encompasses four measures to improve current healthcare: providing information on patients’ future health; offering customized medical care; expanding joint-medical treatment among hospitals; and developing solutions to improve hospitals’ process so as to enhance customer satisfaction and profitability.

Details of "Personalized and Connected Health Management" include promoting globalization with domestic hospitals by establishing a next-generation information system among local clinics and tertiary hospitals, operating U-healthcare platform and a personalized health portal based on ICT, improving process to raise patients’ convenience and hospitals’ productivity, and utilizing next-generation healthcare solution and service.

Jung also added that the company will secure technology leadership, which is essential in promoting the IPE strategy, by internalizing core ICT capabilities and expanding R&D cooperation with leading high-tech companies of both home and abroad.

In the meantime, he emphasized that the company is actively implementing five technology-related growth tasks named ’5nGINE (acronym for next generation, Global de-facto standard, Innovation, No-Border and Experience),’ which has been announced in April. They include next-generation fixed-mobile network technologies; innovative user-interface technologies; business platform and open platform technologies; smart technologies; and cross-industry convergence technologies.

Furthermore, Jung said the company so far made a number of achievements such as demonstrating MIV for the first time in the world at Auto Shanghai 2009, exporting Wibro technology to Jordan, developing 7mm RFID chip that can cut cost by more than 50%, developing core technologies for e-paper and signing an MOU with Bell lab to engage in joint-research in next-generation fixed-mobile telecommunication technology.

Also shared were his plans to establish an Open Innovation Center (OIC) to establish a cooperative system for the development of IPE business and strengthen R&D cooperation with business partners, SMEs and venture companies, and co-develop new products and services.

OIC, also mentioned at the April’s press conference, will facilitate co-growth of SK Telecom and other ICT companies. SK Telecom expects OIC to play a pivotal role in strengthening innovation by securing various sourcing channels and cooperating with business partners; establishing test beds for new technologies and growth areas; and forming cooperative relationships with partners.

’MD Test Center’ was cited as a representative case. By setting up the center in July to enable business partners to test their mobile programs, the company was able to improve completeness of hardware.

Jung closed by saying, "The goal of SK Telecom’s IPE strategy can only be achieved with attention and cooperation from the press, our business partners and the government. We look forward to receiving support and advice from all stakeholders."