SK Telecom Targets Global IoT Market with Lifeware

BARCELONA, Spain, March 1, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- SK Telecom (NYSE:SKM) has unveiled a variety of consumer-centric smart devices, or 'Lifeware*', at the Mobile World Congress 2015 with the aim to create opportunities in the global market for the Internet of Things (IoT).

* Lifeware is a newly-coined word that combines "life" and "hardware/software", and refers to smart devices that add value to people's lives.

At its booth located in Hall 3 (3J30), SK Telecom is introducing diverse Lifeware developed to enhance customers' well-being, health and safety, including Smart Band, Smart Hearing Aid, Smart Beam HD, Linkage, Solar Skin and T Kids Phone JooN. 

Smart Band

Smart Band is a chic-looking wearable watch that comes with a range of innovative functionalities. Set on a sleek and slim bracelet strap to satisfy young and stylish customers, Smart Band not only notifies users of incoming calls, SMS-MMS, emails and SNS updates, but also enhances their health by recommending different levels of physical exercise depending on the user's condition. It also provides fun features like daily horoscopes, selfie remote control and anniversary reminder. Armed with sophisticated design, differentiated features and affordable price, Smart Band is expected to make a strong impression in the market.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150301/178629

Smart Hearing Aid

Smart Hearing Aid, a Bluetooth earset with a hearing aid feature, has also made its first appearance at Barcelona. While wirelessly connected to users' smartphones, Smart Hearing Aid provides basic earset features such as hands-free voice calling and CD-quality music play. Then, it sets itself apart from other Bluetooth earphones by offering a four-channel hearing aid feature for people with hearing loss via a smartphone app that supports specialized hearing aid fitting. Developed in response to the rapidly growing aged population and noise pollution, Smart Hearing Aid will enable customers to use hearing aids more conveniently at a reasonable cost. Smart Hearing Aid has been also recognized for its design excellence, receiving the 2015 iF Design Award.

Smart Beam HD

Smart Beam HD is a pico projector built with laser technology to realize three times better image quality than its former version. It projects a high definition image and brightness of over 50 lumens while guaranteeing safety for eyes, and even has a focus-free feature. Moreover, applied with wireless technologies like Miracast and Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA), the laser projector can be wirelessly connected to the user's smartphone. Introduced for the first time at CES 2015, Smart Beam HD has drawn great interest from companies around the globe, which has led to a number of sales contracts and technology cooperation.

Meanwhile, Smart Beam, the former version of Smart Beam HD launched in February 2013, has successfully established itself as the representative Lifeware of SK Telecom. To date, a total of over 160,000 units have been sold in 13 countries around the world.

Linkage

Linkage is a portable Wi-Fi speaker capable of providing features and quality that are incomparable to the existing Bluetooth speakers. Scheduled to be launched in March 2015, Linkage is expected to rapidly gain popularity in the market as it offers powerful features in a compact body: It plays Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC) music files and can be connected with up to 9 more units to offer surround sound feature.

SolarSkin

SolarSkin is a solar-powered smartphone charging case that can be uses in almost all environments as it uses light to generate electric current to charge a smartphone battery. SK Telecom plans to introduce SolarSkin for Samsung Galaxy Note 3 first and will expand the product for other smartphone models.

T Kids Phone JooN

T Kids Phone JooN is a standalone, wearable 3G phone for children that can be worn as a wristwatch or necklace. Managed through a mobile app named JooNBox installed on parent's smartphone, T Kids Phone JooN offers diverse features including voice calling, SOS notification, real-time location tracking and Safe Zone settings. With the increasing social interest in children's safety and parents' concerns on their children having their first phone at a younger age, T Kids Phone JooN is receiving great response not only in the Korean market but also in the overseas markets including Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Russia and the U.S. Furthermore, SK Telecom plans to expand its lineup of Lifeware targeted at enhancing people's safety and security by launching a follow-up model of T Kids Phone within the first half of this year.

"SK Telecom has taken its appcessaries to the next level with Lifeware, consumer-centric devices that add value to people's lives," said Park Chul-soon, Senior Vice President and Head of Convergence Business at SK Telecom. "We expect to create new opportunities in the global IoT market while participating in MWC 2015 and will continue to develop innovative Lifeware that further enhance convenience, health and safety of our customers."

About SK Telecom

SK Telecom (NYSE: SKM, KSE: 017670), established in 1984, is Korea's largest telecommunications company with more than 28 million mobile subscribers, accounting for over 50% of the market. The company reached KRW 17.164 trillion in revenue in 2014. As the world's first company to commercialize CDMA, CDMA 2000 1x, CDMA EV-DO and HSDPA networks, SK Telecom launched the nation's first LTE service in July 2011. SK Telecom also became the world's first mobile carrier to commercialize 150Mbps LTE-Advanced in June 2013 and 225Mbps LTE-Advanced in June 2014 through Carrier Aggregation(CA). In line with its efforts to swiftly move towards the next-generation mobile network system, or 5G, it successfully commercialized 300Mbps tri-band LTE-A CA. As of December 2014, the company has over 16.7 million LTE and LTE-Advanced subscribers. Based on its strength in network operations business, SK Telecom is seeking new growth engines in areas of platform, Big Data and convergence business. For more information, please visit www.sktelecom.com or email to press@sktelecom.com.

Media Contact
Cindy Kang
SK Telecom Co. Ltd.
(822) 6100-3834
(8210) 9113-2344
psyche@sk.com

Jee-soo Lee
Edelman Korea
(822) 2022-8263
(8210) 4198-6009
Jeesoo.lee@edelman.com