KT’s headquarter in central Seoul / Courtesy of KT
KT sharply expanded earnings last year, delivering solid top‑line growth on the back of artificial intelligence (AI)‑cloud businesses and one-off real estate gains, despite the recent hacking weighing on its fourth-quarter margins.
The company announced it posted revenue of 28.24 trillion won ($19.34 billion) last year, up 6.9 percent year-on-year, while operating profit jumped 205 percent to 2.47 trillion won.
The sharp profit increase was largely driven by gains from property development and leasing business with projects in Daejeon and northern Seoul, alongside improved profitability across group-wide cloud, data center and platform units.
However, its fourth quarter profit was partly weighed down by nonrecurring costs tied to the company’s response to the security breach that surfaced in September. The costs, including free universal subscriber identity module replacement, contract termination fee waiver and related security measures, compressed margins late in the year.
“We apologize to customers, shareholders and investors for causing concerns with the 2025 security incident … The company has faithfully carried out its shareholder‑return policy and value‑up plan based on solid fundamentals,” Chief Financial Officer Jang Min said.
“Building on our core telecom business and AI transformation growth engines, we will continue to pursue growth and enhance corporate value in 2026.”
The company’s core wireless segment remained a steady growth driver, with mobile service revenue rising 3.3 percent year-on-year, supported by subscriber gains and an expanded lineup of mid-priced plans.
Its 5G mobile plan users accounted for 81.8 percent of total handset subscribers, underscoring the shift toward higher‑value data plans.
KT has been pushing aggressively into AI-led digital adoption, rolling out its proprietary Korean language model and AI services developed with Microsoft, as well as a secure public cloud offering. Its partnership with Palantir is also generating new data and AI opportunities, particularly in the financial sector.
KT Cloud’s revenue climbed 27.4 percent in 2025 as data center utilization from global customers and AI cloud demand increased, including from public sector clients. The unit opened its Gasan AI data center in western Seoul last November. It is the country’s first commercial facility to deploy liquid‑cooling technology at scale, with 26 megawatts of capacity to support high‑density graphic processing unit infrastructure.
Real‑estate affiliate KT Estate posted 15.9 percent revenue growth on hotel operations and new development projects, adding another leg to group earnings.
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