One of South Korea's biggest telecom companies, SK Telecom, recently announced that it, together with Indonesia's largest telecom company Telkom Indonesia, launched "English Bean," a revolutionary, smart learning service for English learners in Indonesia. It has plans to come to China in the future.

English Bean, introduced for the first time in the global market, brings a whole new concept to English learning by enabling learners to use the service anywhere and anytime, via diverse means including the Internet, mobile phones and landline telephones.

The company took 17 months to optimize the service for users in Indonesia, where they carefully considered special traits of the market. In particular, considering the fact that Indonesia has the second largest Facebook population with over 35 million, SK Telecom adjusted the service to include various contents especially designed for Facebook, such as English learning games.

The launching event, held in Jakarta, was attended by key executives from both companies, including Park Chol-Soon, Senior Vice President and Head of IPE Business Office at SK Telecom, and Indro Utoyo, Chief Information Officer of Telkom Indonesia.

"SK Telecom will make constant efforts to introduce to the global market high quality, well-made smart learning services like English Bean," said Chol-Soon.

SK Telecom is currently in talks with a Taiwanese telecom company to jointly introduce English Bean in Taiwan. The company plans to launch English Bean in the country as early as the second half of the year.

English Bean's entry into Indonesia holds a great meaning as the company expands its service platform in the Indonesian market following the launch of Melon Indonesia in December 2010. The company started offering Melon Indonesia through 'PT Melon Indonesia,' a joint venture it formed with Telekom.

As of now, Melon Indonesia surpassed two million cumulative downloads and has over 150,000 visitors on average per day.

The SK Group is one of the three largest conglomerates of the Republic of Korea, with business interests spanning three major industries: energy and chemicals, information and telecommunications, and trade and services.

Currently, SK and its affiliates are located in over 40 countries and regions in the world, with more than 250 representative offices and subsidiaries. Among the world's Fortune 500 companies, SK ranked 82 in 2011.

SK started its business in China even before the Republic of Korea established diplomatic relations with China in 1992.