TOKYO (02/04/2000) - Korea Thrunet Co. Ltd., a Seoul-based provider of broadband Internet services, announced this week that the number of subscribers to its cable Internet access service passed 150,000 during January.
The company, which listed on the Nasdaq stock market in New York in Nov. 1999, said in a statement that its broadband subscribers numbered 155,710 at the end of January. The figure compares to 134,740 at the end of December and 16,541 at the end of Jan. 1999.
The rise in subscribers is primarily coming as a result of a continuing expansion of the company's service area, it said. Thrunet now has exclusive contracts with 42 of the country's 77 cable television network operators and is looking to expand further.
In early January the company acquired majority stakes in a number of local cable operators with a view to quickening the roll-out pace of its cable Internet service [See "Korea Thrunet Makes First Infrastructure Buys," Jan. 6].
Later in the same month it also acquired Nowcom Co. Ltd., operator of the fourth largest online service provider in Korea. With the purchase of the narrowband provider, Thrunet said it plans to grow membership of the service and then move the users across to its cable Internet service [See, "Korea Thrunet Acquires Major Local ISP," Jan. 17].
Korea Thrunet, in Seoul, can be found online at http://www.thrunet.com/.