April 20, 2024

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Korea’s No. 3 mobile carrier LG Uplus said on Feb. 14 it will buy CJ Hello, the nation’s No. 1 cable TV operator, to bolster its presence in the media and content market.

LG Uplus held a board meeting to approve purchase of CJ E&M’s 54 percent stake in CJ Hello, a deal worth an estimated 800 billion won (US$711 million). CJ E&M is a unit of food and entertainment conglomerate CJ. 

(Yonhap)

The stake acquisition will be confirmed in a shareholder meeting next month and needs approval from the corporate watchdog Fair Trade Commission, which has 120 days to review its request.

If CJ Hello’s acquisition is finalized, LG Uplus will become the nation’s second-largest pay TV operator with a 24.4 percent market share, up from the current fourth place.

The company’s 2018 earnings improved slightly on the back of increased sales in its home and media division, mostly led by Internet Protocol television.

In November, LG Uplus began offering the global online streaming TV service Netflix on its set-top boxes to provide a wider range of video content, the first among the nation‘s telecommunications companies.

As a result, the number of its IPTV subscribers jumped 13.5 percent to 4.02 million last year, surpassing the 4 million mark for the first time.

By Ram Garikipati and newswires (ram@heraldcorp.com)