SK Telecom shifts to red in Q3 due to data breach compensations

SK Telecom, Korea' leading mobile carrier, said Thursday its third-quarter earnings swung to a net deficit from a year earlier due mainly to massive compensation costs following a data breach that affected its entire 25 million-user base. It posted a net loss of 166.7 billion won ($117.1 million) for the July-September period, compared with a profit of 280.2 billion won a year earlier, the company said in a regulatory filing. The loss was 33.3 percent higher than the average estimate, according to a survey by Yonhap Infomax, the financial data firm of Yonhap News Agency. Operating profit plunged 90.9 percent on-year to 48.4 billion won from 533.3 billion won. Its sales fell 12.2 percent to 3.97 trillion won. SK Telecom attributed the net loss to a 500 billion-won customer compensation program that included mobile rate cuts, additional data offers and discount coupons starting in August. In April, the company reported a large-scale cyberattack on its main servers, during which universal subscriber identity module (USIM) data was potentially compromised. In response, it offered to replace th