Bubble Burst: South Korean SKT Shuts Down Metaverse Service Platform

C114 News Beijing Time December 23rd (ACE) SK Telecom (SKT) announced recently that it will terminate its metaverse service 'ifland' on March 31, 2025. Launched in 2020, ifland allows users to participate in community activities through virtual avatars and personal spaces. According to Korean media reports, this decision marks SKT's strategic shift towards artificial intelligence (AI).

According to C114, it is understood that the South Korean telecommunications operators have been very active in exploring metaverse services, and it is not limited to the domestic market in South Korea, but has set its sights on the global stage.

The announcement shows that SKT has launched ifland service in 49 international markets. In November last year, we learned that SKT announced the signing of memorandums of understanding with Malaysia's Celcom Digi, Indonesia's Agate, and the Philippines' Cosmic Technologies to improve ifland's service in the Southeast Asian region. As of the third quarter of 2023, the number of subscribed users of ifland has exceeded 50 million, and the monthly active users (MAU) has reached 4.2 million.

However, it is currently unclear how many users will be affected by the shutdown of the ifland service. Image: SKT official website ifland shutdown announcement.

In 2021, SKT reorganized its overall business into five different divisions - Fixed and Mobile Communications, Media, Enterprise, AIVERSE (AI+Universe), and Connected Intelligence. At the time, the metaverse was one of the company's strategic priorities.

In November 2022, SKT updated its strategy again and announced its ambition to become an AI company.

In December 2024, SKT announced a major organizational transformation in 2025, restructuring into seven business divisions with a focus on two core areas: AI and communication. The new business groups include Mobile Network Operations (MNO), BWireline/Media, Enterprise, Adot, Global Personal AI Agent, AIX, and AI Data Center.

From a series of strategic updates, it is clear that AI is becoming SKT's new favorite. An SKT executive told the media, "As a global AI company, our goal is to focus our resources on AI."

In fact, the decision of SKT to close the metaverse service is in line with the overall development trend of South Korean telecom operators. The other two major operators in South Korea, KT, have already terminated the Meta Lounge and Genieverse services, while LG U+ has postponed the launch of its metaverse service, MetaSlap. South Korean internet giant Kakao also terminated its Colorverse business early. Among the metaverse services in South Korea, Naver's Zepeto is one of the few services still in operation.

Currently, SKT is actively investing in the construction of the so-called 'AI Infrastructure Highway' in order to become the 'AI Hub Center' in the Asia-Pacific region. SKT plans to build AI infrastructure nationwide with AI Data Center (AIDC), GPU as a Service (GPUaaS), and Edge AI as the main axes, and cooperate with domestic and foreign partners to enter the global market.

SKT CEO Yoo Young-sang said, "Communication infrastructure has always been about competition in network connectivity, namely the competition of network speed and capacity. But now the paradigm of network evolution must change. In the future, 6G will develop into the next-generation AI infrastructure that integrates communication and AI."

Source: Sina

Author: C114 Communication Network