KT and KTF to Merge?
Posted: March 11th, 2008, by Yunho Chung
The Korean telecommunications market has been shaken up of late given the news that the Korean Free Trade Commission (KFTC) accepted the acquisition of Hanaro Telecom by SK Telecom which has been protested by some of the other players.
This acquisition by SK Telecom who is already the dominant player in mobiles in Korea, has caused the other incumbents to rethink their strategy and plan responses to the situation. KT and KTF have renewed their habitual talks about a merger, given that KTF is SK Telecoms main competition. KT already owns a major stake in KTF, yet a wide scale integration effort would seriously affect the telecom landscape in Korea.
The company formed from this merger would be able to offer a wide array of services, yet the issue continues to be on a more general level, raising anti-trust issues. The large players in the sector are swallowing up the smaller players and this raises questions on the competitiveness of the industry. Although nothing has been decided yet, there are a lot of things happening in the industry, with convergence of technologies, M&A’s among other issues.
