Can't Hide Indoors

SK Planet COO Suh Sung-won (left) poses with IndoorAtlas CEO Janne Haverinen (right) after signing a business partnership on July 22 with IndoorAtlas, the global leader in indoor positioning, to target the global O2O market.
SK Planet COO Suh Sung-won (left) poses with IndoorAtlas CEO Janne Haverinen (right) after signing a business partnership on July 22 with IndoorAtlas, the global leader in indoor positioning, to target the global O2O market.

 

SK Planet, a spin off of SK Telecom, the leading South Korean operator, announced that it has signed a US$3 million (3.46 billion won) business partnership on July 22 with IndoorAtlas, the global leader in indoor positioning technology, to target the global online to offline (O2O) e-commerce market.

IndoorAtlas is a start-up that was launched in 2012 by Professor Janne Haverinen and a group of computer engineers at Oulu University in Finland. Its leading-edge technology uses earth's geomagnetic field to pinpoint a precise location inside a building. 

Chinese Internet giant Baidu also made a US$10 million (11.53 billion won) investment last year to target the emerging O2O market and secured exclusive rights to use IndoorAtlas technology within the country.

SK Planet's business partnership and investment includes the right to the IndoorAtlas platform in the Korean market. The partnership with IndoorAtlas will strengthen the existing capabilities of SK Planet's O2O business, which the company has started at home and abroad from last year. Also, it will further enhance Syrup's service capabilities.

IndoorAtlas state of the art indoor positioning system enables indoor location-based services in areas where GPS does not work by utilizing a smartphone sensor's recognition of magnetic distortions created by the building's steel structure.

IndoorAtlas' global platform does not require any additional infrastructure, and it is capable of guiding customers with a stated accuracy of two meters, which tremendously improves various O2O e-commerce services such as indoor navigation, indoor location-based mobile searches, and location-based advertising worldwide. IndoorAtlas is actively expanding business globally to the United States, Japan, and other Asian countries.

SK Planet is using the IndoorAtlas solution to enhance user experience of its leading O2O service “Syrup.” Moreover, the company plans to apply IndoorAtlas' technology to “Syrup Guide,” a complex shopping mall service that is planned to launch later this year, and provide it to other business operators that need relevant technology.

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