Added: 10/26/2005 |
A joint venture between SK Telecom (NASDAQ: SKM) and EarthLink (NASDAQ: ELNK) - SK EarthLinkkorea telecom
This joint venture, SK EarthLink, is SK Telecom's first ever strategic partnership to enter the U.S. market. SK Telecom is one of the world's most advanced wireless providers, which offers its services to more than eighteen million customers. South Korea Telecom is based in Seoul and covers more than fifty percent of the mobile service market in South Korea. The company provides a state-of-the-art art wireless voice and data services, including interactive gaming, video streaming and location-based services.
Being a leader in delivering award-winning Internet services for ten years, EarthLink serves more than five million subscribers. The company is the first major ISP to offer a permission-based spam fighting feature and other innovative tools that block pop-up ads, spyware and phisher sites. Beginning with a wireless data service in 2000, and then launching a wireless data/voice solution in 2004, EarthLink was the first major ISP to become an MVNO.
"This partnership reflects thirty years of combined experience that EarthLink and SK Telecom have gained, anticipating and delivering innovative Internet applications and wireless services," said Garry Betty, EarthLink president and chief executive officer. "SK EarthLink has the potential to reshape the mobile communications market by meeting the growing demand of the U.S. consumers, who are currently underserved by existing voice-oriented wireless operators."
Having combined the resources, SK EarthLink became a well-positioned company, able to compete in the rapidly growing wireless voice and data market.
"The wireless and Internet worlds are colliding, and neither will be the same again," said EarthLink founder and director Sky Dayton, who will serve as a chief executive officer of the SK EarthLink joint venture. "In South Korea, kids in the street are using their mobile phones to listen to music, watch TV, video conferences, locate their friends and access the Internet - as well as to make voice calls - as opposed to the U.S., where the mobile experience is primarily about talking on the phone. Americans are living in the past. Utilizing emerging 3G networks and harnessing the explosive growth of WI-Fi, SK-EarthLink will take the wireless experience in the U.S. to a new level."
Under the terms of the agreement, EarthLink and SK Telecom have a fifty percent ownership stake each in SK EarthLink, and each one appoints three members to the six member board of directors. The business plan for SK EarthLink contemplated that the joint venture could generate approximately three million net subscribers and revenues of approximately two billion dollars by 2009. This business plan also reflects EarthLink's and SK Telecom's recognition of the opportunities, presented by the SK-EarthLink joint venture.
Atlanta-based EarthLink is the nation's next generation Internet service provider and has earned an award-winning reputation for the outstanding customer service and its suite of online products and services. According to the J.D. Power and Associates 2004 Internet Service Provider Residential Customer Satisfaction StudySM, EarthLink is ranked highest in customer satisfaction among the high-speed and dial up Internet Service Providers.
SK Telecom is Korea's leading mobile communications company with more than eighteen million subscribers. The company successfully commercialized the world's first CDMA cellular phone service and launched the world's first synchronized commercial IMT-2000 third generation service.
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