According to industry sources on Saturday, a total of 31,634 subscribers left KT between Dec. 31 and Friday, averaging more than 10,000 departures per day.
Of those, 26,192 moved to rival mobile carriers, including 18,720 — more than 70 percent — who switched to SK Telecom. Another 7,272 subscribers moved to LG Uplus, while the remainder opted for budget mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs).
Industry officials attribute the heavy shift toward SK Telecom to its customer reacquisition policies. Following last year's hacking incident, SK Telecom has been restoring subscription tenure and membership tiers for returning customers, a move that appears to have encouraged former users to switch back amid KT's penalty waiver.
Differences in consumer trust are also believed to have played a role. While the SK Telecom case was largely concluded with the imposition of fines, LG Uplus remains under scrutiny over suspected record concealment.
KT's compensation package itself has also been cited as a factor driving subscriber departures. Although the company offered termination of early fee waivers, additional data allowances and expanded membership benefits, the extra data benefit does not apply to users on unlimited data plans, who account for roughly 30 percent of its subscriber base.
With KT's fee waiver program set to remain in effect until the 13th and rival carriers continuing aggressive customer campaigns, industry watchers expect further subscriber losses in the coming days.
All three of South Korea's major mobile carriers were attacked by hackers last year.
A joint public-private investigation led by the Ministry of Science and ICT found that KT's breach involved a significantly larger scale of malware infections than the incident at SK Telecom, while SK Telecom was assessed to have suffered greater damage in terms of personal data leaks. LG Uplus is expected to face an intensive police investigation following allegations of false submissions and server disposal related to its breach.
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