KT maintains throne in Korea pay TV market in H2 2021

KT Corp., a major South Korean telecommunications company, and its affiliates had the largest subscribers of the country’s pay TV services, maintaining the throne in the industry, government data showed on Wednesday.

The number of the local pay TV subscribers rose 1.5% to 35.6 million on a six-month average in the second half from the previous six months, the Ministry of Science and ICT said.

KT and satellite broadcasting affiliate KT Skylife Co., as well as HCN, a cable television multi-system operator acquired by KT Skylife last September, accounted for a combined 35.6% of the market in the July-December 2021 period with KT’s share at 23.6%, according to the ministry.

In the first half, KT and KT Skylife made up 31.9% of the market together.

The country’s regulation to prevent a certain TV service provider from making up a third of the market expired in June 2018 under the sunset rule.

LG Uplus Corp., LG Group’s telecommunications unit, raised its share in the local pay TV market by 0.1 percentage point to 25.3%, while SK Broadband, a subsidiary of SK Telecom Co., also lifted its share 0.3 percentage point to 25%.

Such expansions raised the top three domestic telecommunications service providers’ dominance in the local pay TV market to 85.9% in the second half of last year from 82% in the first.

Write to Seung-Woo Lee at leeswoo@hankyung.com
Jongwoo Cheon edited this article.