KT reported record-high revenue for the second consecutive year despite a personal data breach incident, driven by surging real estate profits and steady growth in new businesses including artificial intelligence.
The telecommunications giant announced Thursday that it posted consolidated revenue of 28.24 trillion won ($19.6 billion) and operating profit of 2.47 trillion won for 2025. Revenue and operating profit rose 6.9% and 205% year-over-year, respectively. On a standalone basis, revenue reached 19.32 trillion won and operating profit hit 1.31 trillion won, up 4.0% and 276.6% from the previous year, boosted by AX business expansion.
Real estate gains drove the strong results. KT Estate saw revenue and operating profit increase year-over-year through expanded mixed-use development and rental operations, improved hotel performance, and progress on the Daejeon training center development project. The completion of the Gangbuk headquarters site mixed-use development contributed to earnings improvement.
The data center and cloud segments also showed notable growth. KT Cloud, a major subsidiary, posted revenue of 997.5 billion won last year, up 27.4% year-over-year. The growth was largely driven by commercialization of AI infrastructure including GPUaaS (GPU as a Service), based on a strategic partnership with Microsoft. In its core telecommunications business, wireless service revenue grew 3.3% while wireline revenue increased 0.8%.
KT is currently expanding AI and cloud contracts, primarily in the public sector. In November, the company opened the Gasan AI Data Center, the first in Korea to adopt a liquid cooling system. KT plans to actively respond to rising demand for AI and data centers while strengthening its AI infrastructure competitiveness.
"We have launched new products successively based on cooperation with global big tech companies and plan to accelerate our push into the AX market," CFO Jang Min said on an earnings call Thursday. "We expect KT Cloud to play a crucial role in strengthening market leadership as a large-scale AI infrastructure hub capable of AI computing and data processing in the Seoul metropolitan area."