South Korea’s Largest telecommunications company KT corporation and the South Korean cellular carrier owned by LG Corporation, LG Uplus has acquired small stakes in SK Telecom’s smartphone app market platform ONE store.
Both the companies have invested a total amount of 26 billion won (US$23.1 million) for the app.
Together the firms bought an aggregate 3.8 per cent stake in the platform.
with LG investing 5 billion won for 0.7 percent and the remaining 3.1 per cent stake was bought for 21 billion won by KT group.
In a statement given by both the companies, they mentioned that the combined decision was a bid to improve the competence of ONE store
So that ONE store can work as a support platform for the communications technology ecosystem and local information.
After the investment, local tech Giant Naver now has 26.3 per cent stake and SK telecom has a 50.1 per cent stake.
Because of this One store is expected to go public sometime in 2021.
ONE store was established in 2016, It had run at a deficit for four years, but in 2020 it turned to be profit.
According to a report by Korea Mobile Internet Business Association:
In the year 2020, ONE store was the third-largest app market in terms of sales and Google Play generated sales around 5 trillion won, which had accounted of total sales in Korea.
Following by which apple’s app store accounted 21.5 percent and ONE store with 11.7 per cent.
Google and Apple has dominated smartphone app market in Korea for a long time.
It is yet to be seen whether the telecommunications companies acquiring stakes in ONE store will help the domestic app store to boost its presence.
Lee Jae-hwan, the Chief Executive Officer of ONE store said:
“By seeking mutual growth with the industry and offering bigger benefits to customers,”
“we will try to become a representative app market in Korea.”
