SK Telecom Co. (SKM), South Korea's largest wireless operator by subscribers, Wednesday said it will sell its entire 15.3% stake in Virgin Mobile USA Inc. (VM) to Sprint Nextel Corp. (S).

On Tuesday, Sprint Nextel said it would acquire Virgin Mobile in a $483 million stock-swap deal. Sprint already owns 13% of the U.S.-based wireless services operator, and will buy out major shareholders Virgin Group and SK Telecom.

Lauren Kim, a spokeswoman at SK Telecom, said that the company's stake in Virgin Mobile would be diluted to below 1% from 15.3% following Sprint's acquisition of the mobile operator.

"This means there is no strategic value for us so SK Telecom has decided to sell the entire stake when market conditions are favorable," said Kim.

Kim, however, said the sale price and timing hasn't been set yet.

The sale "implies that there's a slimmer chance now for SK Telecom to extend its business in the U.S. after it failed to acquire Sprint," said Daniel Jin, an analyst at Goodmorning Shinhan Securities.

However, Jin said, the stake sale likely won't have much impact on the company's stock price going forward due to the small stake size.

At 0153 GMT, shares of SK Telecom were down 0.8% at KRW181,000, while the broader market was flat.

In November last year, a local news report said that SK Telecom scrapped a plan to forge a business tie-up with Sprint due to the worsening business environment.

-By Jung-Ah Lee, Dow Jones Newswires; 822-2198-2233; jung-ah.lee@dowjones.com