[Click e-Stock] "SK Telecom Has Overwhelming AIDC Scale... Stock Price Depends on Business Pace"

Hyundai Motor Securities Initiates Coverage on SK Telecom with New Target Price of 130,000 Won

On September 2, Hyundai Motor Securities highlighted the overwhelming scale of SK Telecom's Artificial Intelligence Data Center (AIDC), initiating coverage with a target price of 130,000 won and a 'Buy' investment opinion.

SK Telecom recently established SK Hyper, a dedicated AIDC subsidiary. As a result, it is highly likely that future AI data center-related projects will be carried out under SK Hyper using project financing (PF) methods. Choi Seungho, a researcher at Hyundai Motor Securities, analyzed, "In this case, as SK Hyper would be solely responsible for operations, the company's financial statements would not bear the burden of massive capital expenditures (CAPEX)."

Currently, SKT operates an AIDC with a capacity of about 137 MW, but the company plans to gradually expand this figure to 5 GW by 2029 and 15 GW by 2035. At present, the visible expansion plans consist of two projects: 75 MW in Guro and 100 MW in Ulsan.

The business model is expected to be a mix of colocation and GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS). As a partner of Nvidia Cloud, SK Telecom has also signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for collaboration on a 2 GW AI factory project. Researcher Choi stated, "Through SK Hyper, there is a high likelihood of aggressively entering the high value-added GPUaaS business. Although the valuation of SK Hyper is projected to be a multiple of that of SK Horizon, given that detailed plans have not been released, the value of SKT's AIDC has been conservatively assumed based on SK Horizon, where a 100% colocation business model is presumed to apply."

Hyundai Motor Securities forecasts SKT's AIDC colocation revenue to reach 1.4 trillion won and operating profit at 305 billion won by 2030. The business value, discounted to present value, was calculated to be 4.8 trillion won. Researcher Choi added, "This is a turning point where AI infrastructure is becoming a new growth driver, complementing SKT's core business. Therefore, from the perspective of core business stability, SKT has a clear advantage over internet and software companies that may face concerns about AI-related derating (decline in valuation)."

However, it should be noted that such expectations are already reflected in the company's valuation. Choi pointed out, "Whereas the valuation multiplier used to be below 10 times in the past, it is now at around 15 times, comparable to domestic internet companies. As the appeal of SKT as a dividend stock has diminished, future rerating and stock price growth will depend on the actual pace and scale of AIDC business execution."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.