SK Telecom and Deutsche Telekom are working together to introduce the ifland metaverse to Europe and are considering forming a joint company to run the new service, according to SK Telecom.
On Thursday at the German telecommunication company’s headquarters in Bonn, top executives from the corporations met with officials from SK Square to discuss digital collaborations in the metaverse, cybersecurity, and carbon emissions.
SK Square Vice Chairman Park Jung-ho and SK Telecom CEO Ryu Young-sang were in attendance, as were Timotheus Höttges, CEO of Deutsche Telekom, and Claudia Nemat, an executive board member.
Plans for the future
SK Telecom and Deutsche Telekom will have launched ifland in Germany by the end of the year.
The service will be expanded to additional European nations in the future, and the two firms will sell and promote ifland together.
SK Telecom and Deutsche Telekom are discussing the formation of a joint venture. It will be run by the German company and collaborate with other telecom companies on the continent to supervise European ifland’s operations. The total amount of the investments was not released.
A history of collaboration
The two businesses have been considering the EU launch of ifland since March, and Deutsche Telekom decided that SK Telecom’s offering has the potential to stimulate strong responses from the European market, according to a statement by the Korean company.
Since 2018, SK Telecom and Deutsche Telekom have collaborated extensively, conducting annual meetings attended by executives. However, owing to the pandemic, they opted for video sessions in 2020 and 2021.
Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners, a Deutsche Telekom investment entity, received $30 million from SK Telecom in 2019. In June of last year, the German investment company and Microsoft invested 16.8 billion won ($13.2 million) in SK Telecom’s app store, One Store.