Global businesses vies to cooperate on 5G with Korean carriers

Global tech giants are showing an enormous interest in Korean telecommunicators that have achieved the world’s first 5G commercialization. There have been a series of visits made by leading overseas telecoms and global tech companies to Korea to discuss how to cooperate with Korea. Such moves intend to get a glimpse of various business opportunities via the Korean market as 5G-based B2C has only been in its infancy.

KT revealed that Russia’s largest carrier Mobile TeleSystems Group CEO Alexey Kornya and other management-level staff visited the company on Friday to take a look at the status of 5G service in Korea. MTS holds a membership of around 100 million service subscribers in Russia, Eastern Europe the Middle East.

MTS has expressed a marked interest in TV-based AI service “GiGA Genie.” The service has been initiated by a telecoms carrier to start with TV to expand to the AI market while tech giants have led the global AI market with their ICT platforms – Google Home by Google and Alexa by Amazon.

KT said that MTS is highly interested in Korea’s 5G service as it focuses on AI and IoT, adding that it discussed various ways to cooperate with KT.

Previously, CEO Chua Sock Koong of Singtel - Singapore’s largest telecoms carrier as well as Southeast Asian content platform business - visited SK Telecom CEO Park Jung-ho. In March, Park signed an MOU with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella at the MS headquarters in Raymond, Washington. It has been reported that the two signatory companies made up a consultative body for each sector and assign personnel to identify future business opportunities and materialize practical levels of cooperation.

Microsoft's executive vice president Jason Zander said that strategic partnership with SK Telecoms will help Microsoft accelerate digital transformation in the telecoms market, adding that the two companies will make a joint effort to provide innovative and new services through cloud computing and AI.


Do-Young Kwak now@donga.com