SK Telecom has partnered with the largest U.S. education company, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH), which provides educational content to 120 countries across the world, to strengthen domestic smart learning business and kick off global smart learning business.

Through the partnership, the two companies will converge their core capabilities in information communications technology (ICT) and educational content to cooperate in the education content platform business, jointly develop an education platform targeted at the global market, and conduct a range of globally oriented smart education businesses in Korea and overseas markets.

Through the alliance, HMH will develop and provide more than one thousand contents, including Destination and Leveled Reader, while SK Telecom will collaborate by developing viewers, apps, billing systems, certification systems, synchronization functions and other platform functions.

Leveraging HMH’s quality English language content, SK Telecom plans to elevate the competency of English education in South Korea. The company will secure competitiveness in digital education business both in local and overseas markets. In addition, the company expects to develop this collaborative project as an English-based digital textbook business model and expand its smart learning business in the overseas market by offering a globally oriented service of its T Smart Learning business.

SK Telecom and HMH announced that, based on the agreement, they will offer smart learning in countries with high demand for education, including China and India, and also reach out to African countries and other nations with relatively less educational resources to ensure equitable education opportunities. SK Telecom plans to fully cooperate with HMH for the provision of global content linked with low priced devices.

Linda K. Zecher, President and CEO of HMH, said, "As one of the leading global educational content providers, HMH is pleased and proud of the agreement to expand smart learning opportunities with SK Telecom, Korea’s largest mobile communications service provider and the leading ICT company in the world." "While the education business is rapidly evolving and growing with the introduction of smart devices, the collaboration between the two globally competitive companies is expected to bring synergies and successful results," added Zecher.

"Together with HMH, we expect to contribute to the enhancement of global education as well as the expansion of smart education business through a wide range of cooperation, such as securing of global education business opportunities, projects related to providing smart learning platforms (B2B, B2C) and offering of solutions,", "said Bae Joon Dong, President of Network Operations Business at SK Telecom.

Mark Tokola, Deputy Chief of Mission, the Embassy of the United States Seoul Korea, emphasized the meaning of this partnership by saying, "The alliance between HMH and SK Telecom represents the first-ever convergence of the U.S.’ and Korea’s core capabilities in education and information communications technology(ICT). Above all, this partnership is focused on combining the best available English-language content with the most innovative and accessible technology. This will help Korean students become productive, competitive citizens of the global economy."