This week, Deutsche Telekom (DT) and SKT have announced that they have struck a partnership aiming to bring South Korea’s burgeoning metaverse platform, Ifland, to German customers. 
The deal will see the pair carry out a live trial of the metaverse platform before the end of the year, with the ultimate goal of co-creating virtual content for the European market. The test will reportedly include the creation of a virtual space within Ifland modelled on a specific German city…

This week, Deutsche Telekom (DT) and SKT have announced that they have struck a partnership aiming to bring South Korea’s burgeoning metaverse platform, Ifland, to German customers. 

The deal will see the pair carry out a live trial of the metaverse platform before the end of the year, with the ultimate goal of co-creating virtual content for the European market. The test will reportedly include the creation of a virtual space within Ifland modelled on a specific German city. 

This could be just the first step of the two companies’ metaverse partnership. If initial tests prove successful, reports suggest that DT and SKT will consider setting up a metaverse JV to further expand the platform’s reach throughout Europe.

« The two companies have been discussing the European launch of Ifland since March,” SKT said in a statement. “Deutsche Telekom concluded that SK Telecom’s service has the potential to bring out positive reactions from the European market. »

This would not be the first JV the two partners have struck in recent years, having created Techmaker, a 50:50 JV focussed on creating 5G indoor technology, just last year. The relationship between the two companies extends back numerous years, but until now has focussed primarily on R&D in areas like roaming, IoT, and 5G.

As part of this latest deal, DT says it will also work with SKT’s sister company, SK Square, to develop cybersecurity and mobile app marketplace solutions, via the latter’s investments in cybersecurity specialist SK Shieldus and app marketplace operator One Store.

SKT has been developing Ifland since at least the summer of 2021, showcasing it at this year’s Mobile World Congress in February with the intention of taking it international as soon as possible. In recent months, the company has made various investments into metaverse adjacent companies aiming to bolster the platform’s capabilities, including in Morph Interactive, a 3D-motion graphics specialist, and game creator Haegin.

As the concept of a metaverse has become more mainstream in recent years, the question of how telcos can best benefit from this development has become a major challenge. 

Telcos have long complained about so-called over-the-top (OTT) players, like Netflix and Facebook (Meta), reaping the rewards of their expensive infrastructure investments – in fact, just last week the European operators were once again calling for these big tech companies to help pay for their infrastructure investments. There is a major fear from the operators that this cycle could repeat itself with the metaverse, with the operators left footing the bill while content companies reap the rewards. 

This is largely why SKT, coming from one of the most youthful, tech-friendly markets in the world, is trying to take a more direct leading role in metaverse development, seeking to become a content creator in its own right with its Ifland platform. If the platform finds success, SKT could become an attractive partner for other telcos looking for support to enter the metaverse market.

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With its financial performance stuttering, Vodafone Group is hoping a pair of new voices in its board of directors will help revitalise the company’s fortunes. 
Vodafone has now announced the appointment of Simon Segars, ex-CEO of Arm, and Delphine Cunci, previous head of France Télévisions, as non-executive board members.
Segars spent almost 21 years at UK…

With its financial performance stuttering, Vodafone Group is hoping a pair of new voices in its board of directors will help revitalise the company’s fortunes. 

Vodafone has now announced the appointment of Simon Segars, ex-CEO of Arm, and Delphine Cunci, previous head of France Télévisions, as non-executive board members.

Segars spent almost 21 years at UK-based chip giant Arm and had served as the company’s CEO and President since 2013. He stepped down from the role in February following the collapse of Arm’s $66 billion takeover by Nvidia.

Cunci, meanwhile, served as the president of France Télévisions since 2015, prior to which she spent 26 years at Orange, giving her a wealth of telecoms experience on which to draw.

“They are well-respected leaders who bring extensive experience and track records of value creation across the telecoms, technology and media sectors,” said Vodafone Chairman Jean-Francois van Boxmeer. “I look forward to Delphine and Simon’s valuable contribution as the Board and management team work closely together to drive the execution of Vodafone’s strategy, to achieve our commercial and portfolio priorities and deliver long-term value for shareholders.”

The appointments come partly in response to the pressure applied to Vodafone by activist investor Cevian Capital, which took an undisclosed stake in the operator group back in January.

Following the investment, Cevian immediately called for Vodafone to drive harder for industry consolidation and to reshuffle its board of directors, which it claimed lacked telecoms experience. 

Cevian, which manages roughly $15 billion of shares in its portfolio, has a history of targeting conglomerates they believe are being run inefficiently, typically aiming to simplify their management structure and shed underperforming businesses.

Consolidation has been a major focus for Vodafone for many years now, but so far their plans have met with limited success. CEO Nick Read has repeatedly argued that the European telecoms industry is ripe for mergers and acquisitions, saying in February that he was in talks for tie-ups in the UK, Germany, Italy, and Spain. 

Just yesterday, Vodafone UK boss Ahmed Essam called on regulators to look more kindly on consolidation, saying that the telecoms industry had been “suffering for decades” under the strict controls.

Today, SK Group has announced a 50 billion won ($39 million) investment into game creator Haegin, further bolstering its metaverse offering in anticipation of expanding the service abroad.
 
SK Telecom (SKT) and SK Group’s investment arm, SK Square, will each invest half of the total sum. Combined, they will become Haegin’s third-largest shareholder, though the exact size of the total share was not disclosed…

Today, SK Group has announced a 50 billion won ($39 million) investment into game creator Haegin, further bolstering its metaverse offering in anticipation of expanding the service abroad.

SK Telecom (SKT) and SK Group’s investment arm, SK Square, will each invest half of the total sum. Combined, they will become Haegin’s third-largest shareholder, though the exact size of the total share was not disclosed. 

Haegin has produced a string of successful games in South Korea since being founded in 2017, but its largest hit came in April 2021 with the launch of ‘Play Together’, a casual metaverse game that offers players various mini-games, daily life experiences, and a large range of avatar customisation. Likened to the game platform Roblox, which saw a surge of popularity during the pandemic, Play Together also functions as a game creation platform, allowing players to create their own minigames challenge their friends online. 

Play Together attracted 80 million downloads within its first year and has roughly four million daily users. 

From the success of Play Together, Haegin has seen a boom in investor interest, announcing in March this year that it had attracted $82 million in Series B investment.

SKT, it seems, are trying to capitalise on Haegin’s meteoric rise, hoping that the company’s gaming expertise will help them further develop their own metaverse platform, Ifland, and ensure its competitiveness in an international market. The operator said it will collaborate closely with Haegin to upgrade the game content available on its platform, particularly with regards to immersive experiences and the intersection of AI technology and the metaverse, something they call the ‘AI-Verse’.

“Our collaboration with a global games firm will be a big boost for SKT’s penetration into the global market with AI-Verse, as well as strengthening our service competitiveness,” said Lee Hyun-ah, manager at SKT’s AI&CO.

In future, for example, SKT aims to releasing what it calls an ‘AI secretary service’ as part of its Ifland platform, whereby AI-powered avatars of each smartphone customer can act as a personal secretary to the user.

Yang Maeng-seok, head of SK Telecom‘s metaverse business, described the investment as the foundation for “providing Ifland users with more fun factors”.