Sk Telecom Co Ltd (SKM)

Price$38.70Cached quoteAs of 2026-09-05 12:51 UTC

AI: Fair-priced

Price checkThe shares look fairly priced because recovery is real, but future growth already carries a meaningful premium.

At the observed ADR valuation, SK Telecom trades at roughly 17 times FY2024 earnings and about eight times FY2024 free cash flow, meaning cash left after running and investing in the business. FY2024 free cash flow was KRW 2.60 trillion and net income was KRW 1.25 trillion. Annualizing first-half 2026 net income implies a lower roughly 13–14 times earnings, but 2025 net income fell to KRW 375 billion before the rebound. That range supports Fair-priced rather than a valuation extreme.

Big pictureRevenue has grown slowly, while cash generation stayed resilient through heavy network investment.

From 2019 through 2024, revenue rose from KRW 15.4 trillion to KRW 17.9 trillion, about 3.1% a year, while operating income increased from KRW 0.99 trillion to KRW 1.69 trillion. Operating cash flow, the cash generated by normal business activity, remained above KRW 4 trillion each year. Free cash flow improved from roughly KRW 0.66 trillion to KRW 2.60 trillion as capital spending declined. The telecom revenue base is relatively defensive; investment cycles and unusual expenses have caused more volatility than customer demand.

Business strengthThe core business is durable, but the balance sheet is solid rather than unusually conservative.

At FY2024, current assets of KRW 7.48 trillion were below KRW 9.22 trillion of current liabilities, so short-term coverage was not exceptionally strong. The subsequent annual filing reported KRW 1.68 trillion of cash and short-term financial assets against KRW 1.25 trillion of short-term borrowings and current long-term debt at FY2025. FY2024 dividends consumed about 31% of free cash flow. Shares outstanding fell roughly 2.4% from 2022 to 2024 despite KRW 159 billion of stock compensation, indicating limited dilution. Dividend discipline weakened temporarily when the 2025 year-end payment was skipped.

What could change the storyArtificial intelligence assets can add value, but large data-center plans could consume the cash advantage.

The bull case is becoming tangible: second-quarter 2026 artificial-intelligence data-center revenue reached KRW 136.2 billion, up 92.5%, while recent reporting valued SK Telecom's Anthropic holding around KRW 3.5 trillion, a meaningful fraction of the company's equity value. The bear case is capital intensity. SK Hyper targets 5 gigawatts of capacity from 2029 and eventually 15 gigawatts, with KRW 750 billion committed just to development foundations through 2030. The valuation therefore needs telecom earnings to remain recovered while these investments create value rather than crowd out cash returns.

AI: News

Nvidia AI cloud dealNvidia gave SK Telecom's data-center ambitions more credibility, while leaving the ultimate investment scale uncertain.

On June 8, 2026, SK Telecom and Nvidia announced plans for an artificial-intelligence cloud in Korea, with the first AI factory targeted for 2027. SK Telecom subsequently clarified in an SEC filing that the first facility itself will not be gigawatt-scale; expansion to that level would occur in phases. The partnership strengthens the commercial case for SK Telecom's infrastructure strategy, but it also highlights how much capital and execution may be required. A broad Korean market selloff that day makes short-term share-price attribution unreliable.

SK Hyper buildoutManagement turned its data-center ambition into a funded subsidiary with unusually large long-term capacity targets.

On July 23, SK Telecom's board approved SK Hyper, a wholly owned data-center development subsidiary, and up to KRW 750 billion of contributions through 2030. The company targets 5 gigawatts of capacity opening in phases from 2029 and potentially 15 gigawatts by 2035. SK Telecom's Korean shares gained about 5.7% that day, although timing alone cannot prove the announcement caused the move. Success could create a new growth business; poor returns on infrastructure spending would have the opposite effect.

Second-quarter reboundProfitability recovered sharply and the dividend continued, reducing fears that last year's weakness was permanent.

SK Telecom reported second-quarter results on August 5: revenue was KRW 4.36 trillion, operating income KRW 566 billion and net income KRW 466 billion. Operating income rose 67.3% year over year, though management acknowledged the comparison benefited from unusual prior-year expenses. Data-center revenue grew 92.5%, and the KRW 830 quarterly dividend was maintained. The Korean shares rose modestly that session, but several large moves occurred around the release, so the exact market reaction cannot confidently be assigned solely to earnings.

Anthropic stake revaluationA rising Anthropic valuation made SK Telecom's minority investment large enough to influence the stock materially.

On August 14, reporting around a possible Anthropic listing helped push SK Telecom shares sharply higher; Seoul Economic Daily observed an 8.7% intraday rise. Separate reporting put SK Telecom's 3.86 million Anthropic shares at about KRW 3.5 trillion after an additional KRW 139.9 billion investment. That asset could materially increase shareholder value without relying on telecom growth. However, it remains an unlisted minority holding whose valuation can change rapidly through new financing rounds, dilution or weaker private-market pricing.

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Financial statements

	2025	2024	2023	2022	2021	2020	2019	2018	2017	2016	2015
Revenue	₩17.10T	₩17.94T	₩17.61T	₩17.30T	₩16.75T	₩16.09T	₩15.42T	₩16.87T	₩17.52T	₩17.09T	₩17.14T
Research & development	₩339.51B	₩378.08B	₩369.51B	₩340.86B	₩406.67B	₩416.44B	₩391.33B	₩391.33B	₩395.28B	₩344.79B	₩315.79B
Operating expenses	₩13.91T	₩16.32T	₩15.90T	₩15.77T	₩15.43T	₩15.15T	₩14.52T	₩16.11T	₩16.33T	₩15.85T	₩15.67T
Operating income	₩1.02T	₩1.69T	₩1.76T	₩1.59T	₩1.43T	₩1.04T	₩987.05B	₩833.85B	₩1.22T	₩1.30T	₩1.50T
Operating margin	5.94%	9.42%	9.97%	9.21%	8.55%	6.43%	6.40%	4.94%	6.99%	7.63%	8.73%
EBITDA	₩4.57T	₩5.25T	₩5.37T	₩5.22T	₩5.10T	₩4.70T	₩4.53T	₩3.96T	₩4.32T	₩4.25T	₩4.34T
EBITDA margin	26.74%	29.27%	30.50%	30.14%	30.48%	29.21%	29.37%	23.47%	24.67%	24.84%	25.33%
Net income	₩408.41B	₩1.39T	₩1.15T	₩947.83B	₩2.42T	₩1.50T	₩860.73B	₩3.13T	₩2.66T	₩1.66T	₩1.52T
Net profit margin	2.39%	7.73%	6.51%	5.48%	14.44%	9.33%	5.58%	18.56%	15.17%	9.71%	8.85%
Basic EPSper basic share	₩1,012.88	₩5,780.00	₩4,954.00	₩4,118.00	₩7,191.00	₩4,093.00	₩2,425.00	₩8,813.20	₩7,316.40	₩4,699.40	₩4,197.60
Diluted EPSper diluted share	₩1,012.88	₩5,765.00	₩4,950.00	₩4,116.00	₩7,187.00	₩4,092.00	₩2,425.00	₩8,813.20	₩7,316.40	₩4,699.40	₩4,197.60

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Owners

Reported shareholders

Reference date Jun 30, 2026

Reported holdings Number of shares

View holders

Top 20 reported holders of SKM
Holder	Shares held
BlackRock, Inc.	5.03M
MORGAN STANLEY	3.99M
NOMURA ASSET MANAGEMENT INTERNATIONAL INC.	2.66M
Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V.	2.56M
Mawer Investment Management Ltd.	1.71M
TWO SIGMA INVESTMENTS, LP	1.56M
Tidal Investments LLC	1.33M
Creative Planning	1.13M
SG Americas Securities, LLC	1.11M
AMERICAN CENTURY COMPANIES INC	979.7K
JANE STREET GROUP, LLC	859.48K
BlueCrest Capital Management Ltd	750K
Point72 Asset Management, L.P.	715.03K
Incline Global Management LLC	634.81K
UBS Group AG	612.69K
South Street Advisors LLC	597.21K
BNP PARIBAS FINANCIAL MARKETS	574.34K
BANK OF AMERICA CORP /DE/	544.37K
GOLDMAN SACHS GROUP INC	536.88K
Allspring Global Investments Holdings, LLC	507.12K

Bars compare reported share counts. A matching total for this share class and reporting period is unavailable, so percentages are not shown.

Source: SEC Form 13F ↗Updated Sep 29, 2026 · Quarterly data

Insider buys & sells

Jul 1, 2024–Jun 30, 2026

Buys0$0.00 disclosed value

Sells (SEC code S)0$0.00 disclosed value

No insider transactions transactions were reported in the stored SEC coverage.

Review ownership filings at SEC.gov ↗

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