Korean telcos boost IPTV bets

The Korea Times is reporting that Korea Telecom and SK Broadband, the county's two biggest IPTV service providers, are investing more money on IPTV as they prepare to engage in major marketing campaigns aimed at doubling their respective customer bases.

KT wants to jump from the 1 million subscribers it had at the end of 2009 to 2 million by the end of 2010, while SK Broadband is looking to increase its subscriber base from 402,000 subscribers to about 800,000 over the same period, the report says. The third major IPTV player in the Korean market, LG Telecom is also ready to increase its marketing spending.

These efforts are all about building the biggest customer base and leading the market, but the aggressive marketing also just might be required to bring in enough revenue to get a return on what the telcos have already spent on IPTV.

South Korea's IPTV market has some difference from others, one being its early plunge into video-on-demand followed by a much later foray into broadcast IPTV, but marketing ambitions put them in the same camp with other IPTV service providers worldwide who are looking to make sense of the business after expensive build-outs.

For more:
- Korea Times has this story

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