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(Photo= Yonhap news) |
[Alpha Biz= Reporter Kim Jisun] As South Korean telecom companies have restructured their 5G plans, the number of subscribers to unlimited data plans has significantly decreased.
According to the Ministry of Science and ICT on September 24th, as of June, only 28.8% of 5G users were on unlimited data plans, down from 72% at the end of 2019—a drop of more than 40 percentage points. Meanwhile, the proportion of general 5G plan subscribers increased to about 71%.
This shift is attributed to telecom companies' efforts to segment data usage and adjust pricing on 5G plans since the latter half of last year. With the government pushing for lower communication costs, telecom companies focused on reducing the prices of popular 5G plans.
Earlier this year, KT introduced a mid-priced 5G plan offering 4GB of data for a monthly fee of 37,000 KRW, followed by similar plans from SK Telecom and LG Uplus in the 30,000 KRW range.
As a result, LTE plans, which have been around for more than a decade, have become relatively expensive, leading to a decline in LTE subscribers. While 5G users grew from 32.51 million at the end of last year to 34.35 million by July, LTE subscribers fell from 22.95 million to 21.89 million over the same period.
Alphabiz Reporter Kim Jisun(stockmk2020@alphabiz.co.kr)
