KT believes that focusing on the hotel industry is not appropriate. It plans to liquidate its real estate assets to concentrate on its core business, telecommunications.
Kimsung-sop, president of KT, noted on the 4th in a press conference held in Barcelona, Spain, during the world’s largest mobile exhibition, Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2025. Previously, there were suggestions in the industry that KT was considering the sale of profitable real estate assets, including Shilla Stay Yeoksam and Andaz Seoul Gangnam.
President Kim said, "The telecommunications business has an operating profit margin of 5 to 8%, which is not particularly high, but the revenue scale is large, allowing for substantial profit. While the hotel business has a higher operating profit margin, when considered in absolute terms, it is only one-sixth of telecommunications. I believe that it is more suitable to invest in our core telecommunications business to stay ahead and generate more revenue. With the upcoming 6G era, we need to invest in satellite operations and network infrastructure and artificial intelligence (AI), so I think it is better to liquidate real estate. "
President Kim noted that he would proceed with cooperation with Microsoft (MS) to generate substantial revenue. He said, "There were concerns that the scale could become too large while discussing the collaboration stage with MS, and we cannot afford to spend too much time, so we narrowed the scope to enhance human capabilities through cooperation with MS." He added, "We decided to establish an AX (Artificial Intelligence transformation) specialist center with MS talent funded by KT, which I believe can increase revenue much faster than developing AI models directly."
President Kim also said, "There were concerns that dependence on big tech could increase too much due to this cooperation, but I believe we must follow rapidly to improve our technological level."
President Kim positively assessed last year’s massive restructuring. KT conducted voluntary retirements for 2,700 employees out of the headquarters staff last year and transferred 1,700 personnel to two newly established subsidiaries. He stated, "The thought that both quantitative and qualitative restructuring is necessary remains. We must actively recruit foreign talent and hurry to achieve specific results." He added, "Through restructuring, we achieved the No. 1 market capitalization among the three telecommunications companies in 22 years, and I believe the trust that shareholders have placed in KT has contributed to this outcome."