(3rd LD) KT Q1 net drops 9.4 pct on lower demand

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SEOUL, April 24 (Yonhap) -- KT Corp., South Korea's largest fixed-line telephone
and Internet company, said Friday its first-quarter profit fell 9.4 percent from
a year earlier due to lower demand.
Net income amounted to 139.6 billion won (US$104.5 million) in the January-March
period, compared with 154.1 billion won a year earlier, the company said in a
regulatory filing. It posted a loss of 26.6 billion won in the last quarter of
2008.
Sales slipped 6.5 percent on-year to 2.77 trillion won, while operating profit
gained 15.4 percent to 384.5 billion won, it said.
KT shares closed at 36,700 won on the Seoul bourse, up 1.66 percent from the
previous session.
The company said its bottom line was hit by a shrinking customer base in the
fixed-line business.
"We will defend our subscriber base for the traditional phone service by shifting
a portion of the base into the Internet phone service," said Kim Yeon-hak, chief
financial officer for the company, in a conference call with analysts.
"We will not engage in reckless competition for acquiring new subscribers, but
will work to maintain existing subscribers through bundle products."
KT earlier this month launched a new service called "Qook," which is a
combination of traditional and Internet phone services in addition to its
Internet television.
A former state-run company, KT controls more than 90 percent of South Korea's
wired telephone market and services nearly 45 percent of broadband Internet
users.
In late March, it announced a merger with its mobile affiliate KTF Co., the
country's second-largest mobile carrier, in an effort to boost its
competitiveness in the saturated local telecom market.
The merged entity is scheduled to launch on June 1.
ygkim@yna.co.kr
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