[MWC23] SKT join hands with 4 global telecommunications companies to export metabus

Yoo Young-sang, president of SK Telekom, and Tim Hötges, chairman of Deutsche Telekom, are looking around the SKT booth at MWC23./Photo = Courtesy of SK Telecom

SK Telecom will join hands with telecommunications companies in the US, Europe, and Southeast Asia in earnest to enter the global market for its metaverse service.

At 'MWC23' held in Barcelona, Spain, SK Telecom announced cooperation in the metabus business field with Germany's Deutsche Telekom, the US T-Mobile US, Axiata, Malaysia  It was announced on the 1st that an agreement was signed.

An SK Telecom official said, "In November of last year, the metaverse platform 'Efriend' was simultaneously launched in 49 countries, including North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. "he explained.

According to this agreement, SK Telecom plans to conduct e-friend marketing with Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile US for subscribers of each company, and to discover metaverse contents specialized for each region.

For example, a virtual space modeled after Berlin, Germany, a dedicated avatar, and costumes are developed and provided to Deutsche Telekom subscribers, and joint marketing of both companies is also conducted. Accordingly, the German version of e-friend will be released in the second quarter of this year, and marketing activities will be conducted for three months.

Axiata, a Southeast Asian operator, has agreed to expand E-friend services to its subsidiaries, and to cooperate not only in the metabus platform business field but also in artificial intelligence (AI)-based business. 

Axiata is a service provider with 200 million subscribers in Malaysia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Bangladesh and Nepal.

It signed a business agreement with Celcomdigi, Malaysia's No. 1 business operator, focusing on increasing the number of local Ifland users and seeking new business opportunities.

SK Telecom expects that cooperation with Axiata and Cellcomdigi will not only expand the metabus service area in the local area where K-content is hotly responding, but also discover various business opportunities derived from it.

Yoo Young-sang, CEO of SKT, said, “Major telecommunications companies in each country are important partners in e-friend’s global expansion.