Two telcos met to discuss the marketing of ‘SK-Pop’ world
SK Telecom and Deutsche Telekom (DT) are in a joint venture to bring the ifland metaverse to Europe, SK Telecom told Korea’s media on Sunday. The announcement came after luminaries including DT CEO Timotheus Höttges, DT executive board member Claudia Nemat, SK Telecom CEO Ryu Young-sang and SK Square Vice Chairman Park Jung-ho assembled in Bonn last week to discuss issues they are to jointly tackle, which are primarily the metaverse, cybersecurity and carbon emissions.
DT to be ifland’s estate agent
SK Telecom and Deutsche Telekom will start by introducing ifland in Germany by the end of the year. The service will later be expanded to other European countries, and the two companies will jointly market and promote ifland. “The two companies have been discussing the European launch of ifland since March and Deutsche Telekom concluded that SK Telecom’s service has the potential to bring out positive reactions from the European market,” said SK Telecom’s release.
Euro telcos
A formal joint venture agreement is to be established by SK Telecom and DT, under which the latter will oversee operations of European ifland and organise collaborations with European mobile operators. Details on the size of the investments were not disclosed. Though the deal has informal executive agreement there is currently no contract, said a source of the Korea JoongAng Daily. The two telcos have been working closely since 2018, holding annual executive meetings in person until Covid forced them to use Zoom in 2020 and 2021.
Joint venture
In 2019 SK Telecom invested $30 million in Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners and subsequently teamed with Microsoft to invested €12.5million (16.8 billion Korean won) in One Store, the app store operated by SK Telecom, in June 2021. The two telcos jointly own a 5G tech company Techmaker, formed in January 2021 with each holding a 50% stake. “We have been working closely with SK Telecom to lead the future in innovative technology through our partnership,” said Höttges in a statement.
Security on ifland
SK Telecom, SK hynix and SK Square formed a tech alliance in January, promising to create a 1-trillion-won investment fund with outside investors to develop technologies related to advanced semiconductors, artificial intelligence, blockchain and the metaverse. Thursday’s meeting also led to the signing of a letter of intent between SK shiledus, a cybersecurity subsidiary of SK Square, and Deutsche Telekom’s Deutsche Telekom Security subsidiary to jointly develop advanced cybersecurity technologies.