SK Telekom has identified big data for the Internet-of-Things (IoT) as one of its future growth engines to expand its current business and to augment its revenues in a relatively mature market. The service provider is expected to increase its investment in big-data platforms as means to acquire the capabilities needed to provide big data services for the growing number of IoT/M2M applications in the market.
"SK Telecom will invest more in IoT-, big data- and healthcare-related business solutions this year as we believe those areas have huge growth potential and could benefit us in sync with our leadership in the local telecommunications sector," said Korea Times citing an unnamed official at SK Telecom. The company is on track to developing solutions that will be customized to a number of growing of applications including vehicle management systems, energy management and healthcare improvement. At the same time, SK Telekom is also attracting more players in the market, including developers to be part of its ecosystem and is planning more activities in this space, including the 'App Challenge' type of competitions involving local application developers.
The largest operator in Korea has moved rapidly into the IoT market with trials and commercial offerings, including cooperation with LG U+ to jointly develop the oneM2M standards for their Machine to Machine (M2M) and Internet of Things(IoT) product offerings. Both the carriers have made their first commercial deployments of IoT platforms based on the oneM2M specifications. In addition, SK Telecom has also started a pilot operation of an IoT-based Fish Farm Management System and has recently introduced the portable smart Home air monitoring device air cube.
