KT beefs up services for foreigners as travel bans ease

South Korea’s leading telecom operator KT Corp. will offer a broader range of services for foreign subscribers ahead of an expected surge in foreign visitors with the loosening of entry restrictions.  

Starting this month, KT will launch a mini-program within the WeChat platform, China’s top messenger app, to serve Chinese customers, the largest proportion of foreign residents in South Korea.

WeChat, developed by China’s tech giant Tencent Holdings, has as many as 1.2 billion users worldwide.

A foreign user can search the KT mini-program within the WeChat app and press the follow button to get immediate access to the service.  

KT is South Korea’s first telecom service provider to open a WeChat mini-program.

The Shilla Duty-Free Shop and South Korea’s railway operator Korail are among the domestic companies that operate sub-applications within WeChat, which also houses foreign e-commerce players.  

The KT mini-program provides real-time chat services in Chinese and English languages to both wired and wireless service users.

It also informs its subscribers of the total hours and data they have used for telecom services, as well as the location of nearby KT service centers.

Also, foreign visitors can use the app to apply for a universal subscriber identity module (USIM) card to continue to use 3G phone service, before they arrive in Korea. Inserted into a mobile phone or terminal, a USIM card stores subscriber-related information for 3G service.

The WeChat-based sub-app offers KT's Chinese customers discounts on delivery service platforms dedicated to Chinese food, wire transfer fees to Chinese banks and reduced entrance fees to tourist attractions.

Such services for foreigners will be expanded to speakers from Vietnam and Russia.

For the time being, speakers of foreign languages other than English and Chinese can use the service by leaving a message and getting a call back for service. 

Write to Seung-Woo Lee at leeswoo@hankyung.com
Yeonhee Kim edited this article.