South Korea’s biggest mobile carrier SK Telecom Co. said Wednesday its net profit rose 5.7 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier on the back of a rise in long-term evolution subscribers and good performance by its key affiliate chipmaker.

Net profit came to 531 billion won ($507.4 million) in the July-September period, compared with 502.2 billion won the previous year, the company said in a regulatory filing.

The figure slightly surpasses the 522.8 billion won consensus polled by 12 local analysts, compiled by Yonhap Infomax, the financial news arm of Yonhap News Agency.

Operating profit reached 536.6 billion won in the third quarter, down 2.7 percent from a year ago, while revenue increased 5.9 percent on-year to 4.36 trillion won in the cited period.

The stronger bottom line was propped up by the record-high quarterly results of SK hynix Inc., a key subsidiary of SK Telecom, the company said. 

The world’s second-largest memory chipmaker logged 1.09 trillion won in net profit and 1.3 trillion won in operating profit in the third quarter, both reaching an all-time high since the tech firm merged with SK Telecom in 2012. (Yonhap)