Korea Telecom, the country’s second-largest mobile carrier, is buying a 25 percent stake in Omnitel China to enter the mobile content business in China.
Omnitel is a one of South Korea’s largest mobile developers, and has a Chinese affiliate that has been providing mobile video-on-demand and other content to China’s leading mobile carriers, reports The Korea Times. It is unknown how much the stake will cost KT. Separately, KT’s parent company, which operates both landline and wireless divisions, said it will cut almost 6,000 jobs at the end of the year in its biggest-ever workforce reduction ever. Most of the departures will come in the form of voluntary early retirements. The cuts will save $393 million a year, reports Bloomberg.
Omnitel China, which is planning to be listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, already has 12 million mobile content subscribers via China’s various mobile carriers and has additional plans to develop more entertainment services for the phone. KT will likely secure its ownership stake by the end of July. The investment comes at a time when China is seeing rapid growth of smartphones and netbooks, which are being used for video, media and other applications.

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