Leading Car Sharing Market
Hyundai Motor Co. has been seeking to make an aggressive investment and development by forming a strategic partnership with global leading companies in order to lead the car sharing market, one of the mainstays of the future mobility market.
South Korea’s top automaker announced on January 11 that it has decided to invest in the Singapore’s Grab, the biggest ride-hailing firm in Southeast Asia. Established in 2012, Grab, which is called Uber in Southeast Asia, is the leading operator in the region’s third-party taxi hailing and private-vehicle hailing market with a 75 percent share. It is the third largest in the global car sharing market after China’s Didi and U.S.’ Uber.
Hyundai Motor is planning to establish a solid foothold in Southeast Asian mobility market by introducing various services connected to Grab’s business platforms. It will also seek out the group’s new growth engine by internalizing its ability to develop future mobility services and technologies. Hyundai Motor will provide its Ioniq electric car (EV) as the vehicle for Grab’s car-hailing service in selected countries in Southeast Asia, including Singapore, and make use of various information on cars, users and driving conditions to develop new mobility service platforms in the future.
The latest partnership is the seventh collaboration after providing hydrogen powered EVs to a Germany’s car sharing firm in June 2016, except for one-time test-drive events. Hyundai Motor seems to initiate a drive to dominate the future car sharing service market in advance by joining hands with global companies in the U.S., Germany and Singapore as well as South Korean ones.
Previously, Hyundai Motor launched a free Ioniq EV sharing service in the U.S., supplied cars to South Korean environmentally friendly car sharing start-up J'Car, made a 5 billion won (US$4.69 million) strategic investment in South Korean carpool startup Luxi, started its free floating car sharing service in Amsterdam of the Netherlands with the delivery of 100 Ioniq EVs and teamed up with Luxi to trial a carpool program with the intention of acquiring cars with the help of carpool neighbors, making an effort to spread car sharing services with a series of partnerships in the global market.