SK Telecom claims 1 million 5G subscriber record

Korean operator SK Telecom has announced it’s the first to accumulate a million 5G subscribers, just four months after it was made available.

While this is an impressive achievement, it only represents 3.5% of its total subscriber base of 28 million. Having said that SK Telecom managed to hit this milestone twice as quickly as it did with 4G, which it launched in 2011. Those million early adopters are using 33.7 GB of data per month, compared to the 4G average of 20.4 GB.

“SK Telecom will continuously develop innovative contents and services specially designed and optimized for 5G network to provide differentiated experiences to our 5G subscribers,” said Ryu Young-sang, Head of the MNO Business at SK Telecom. The press release also took the opportunity to big-up the recently-launched Samsung Note 10 5G.

South Korea has emerged as the world’s commercial 5G test-bed. SK Telecom has put a lot of work into providing services, such as HD video streaming, that make use of the additional bandwidth offered by 5G and that seems to be paying off. While certain trends may be unique to local consumers, any operator looking for 5G monetization tips could do worse than pay Korea a visit.