COMTEX) B: KOREA THRUNET PURCHASES NOWCOM
B: KOREA THRUNET PURCHASES NOWCOM
SEOUL, South Korea, and NEW YORK, Jan 14, 2000 /PRNewswire via
COMTEX/ -- Korea Thrunet Co., Ltd. (Nasdaq: KOREA) today announced that
the Company purchased equity ownership in one of the leading Korean
online service providers, Nowcom Company Limited, from Hanchang
Corporation. In this deal, Korea Thrunet led a group of investors
consisting of TriGem Computers Inc., TriGem Ventures and Metaland Inc.
The Thrunet-led group acquired a 61.2% ownership stake in Nowcom. Co.,
Ltd. investing KRW 68 billion or US $59 million.
Through this purchase, Korea Thrunet acquired 32% of equity ownership
of Nowcom Co., Ltd. for KRW 35.6 billion or US$ 31 million and has
become the largest shareholder. TriGem Computers, TriGem Ventures and
Metaland will own 10.0%, 17.5% and 1.7% respectively.
Nowcom Co., Ltd. is also widely known under the brand name of "Nownuri"
in Korea. Since the inception of the Company in 1994, it has been
providing on- line service, Internet and systems integration services.
It is the 4th largest Korean narrowband Internet portal and on-line
access service provider in terms of number of subscribers. There are
1.49 million users registered at "Nownuri."
"We are a premier on-line service provider in Korea. We have over 3,200
cyber communities, which have enabled us to effectively expand our
presence in this rapidly growing market," said Mr. Chang Hoon Kang
President & CEO of Nowcom Co., Ltd. "Until now, our business has been
limited to the narrowband market, but with Korea Thrunet we can expand
our services to the broadband market. I believe the acquisition by
Korea Thrunet will create huge synergy between the two companies in
both access and portal enhancement strategy."
The Nowcom's "Nownuri" has attracted younger users with its portal
services. Approximately 70% of its users are young students and people
in their 20's.
"Our primary strength is in broadband access, multimedia content and
broadband portal service, but we are still in an early development
stage in the narrowband market segment. At present in Korea, over 90%
of Internet users still use narrowband access service, and I believe
subscribers in the narrowband market will continue to grow, although at
a lower rate than that of broadband. Therefore, the purchase of a
leading narrowband access and portal service provider such as Nownuri
would be a huge plus for us," said Mr. Jong Kil Kim, President and CEO
of Korea Thrunet. "We need to work on migrating those narrowband users
into our broadband services, and 'Nownuri' will play a key role for us
in increasing traffic and broadening our subscriber base. With a
broader subscriber base, we can expect faster growth in generating
advertising and e-commerce revenues," said Mr. Kim.
About Company Korea Thrunet Co., Ltd. is the leading provider of
high-speed Internet services in Korea, with 112,995 end users as of
November 30, 1999. Thrunet service features "always-on" Internet access
at speeds up to 100 times faster than traditional dial-up Internet
access, with compelling multimedia content ranging from on-demand music
videos and Internet telephony to multimedia bulletin board and
multimedia chatting services. Korea Thrunet also provides
facilities-based data communications services to more than 150
corporate customers in Korea, including several major
telecommunications svno]L0U[3_S, Seoul, Korea 137-072.
SOURCE Korea Thrunet Co., Ltd.
(C) 2000 PR Newswire. All rights reserved.
prnewswire.com
-0-
CONTACT: Thomas Sung of Korea Thrunet Co., Ltd., 3488-8059, or fax,
3488-8700, or thomas@corp.thrunet.com; or Mami Ogawa of
Thomson Financial
Investor Relations, 212-701-1824, or fax, 212-344-5929, or
mami.ogawa@thomsonir.com, for Korea Thrunet Co., Ltd.
(KOREA)
|
