SEOUL, KOREA - KT surpassed the 10-million mark in the number of LTE subscribers. The company announced on September 17 that it reached the 10-million milestone in just two years and eight months after launching the LTE service in January 2012.
KT joined the LTE service market later than its rivals such as SK Telecom and LG U+ due to the delay in its termination of 2G networks. It, however, expanded its presence at a robust pace, breaking the 1-million level in five months and the 5 million level in one year and two months after launching the service.
According to the data released by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, SK Telecom has 15.67 million LTE subscribers, followed by KT with 9.67 million, and LGU+ with 7.93 million as of the end of July 2014.
Along with the increase in the number of LTE subscribers, the per-capita monthly data usage rose by 52 percent to 2.6GB in the second quarter of this year from 1.7GB.
KT attributed the strong growth mainly to its establishment of 100,000 broadband LTE base stations, the largest among major telecom companies, which contributed to improving the quality of LTE services.
