“T Map” Turning into Mobility Company
Korea’s most popular navigation service "T Map," which is used by 75 percent of Korean drivers, will turn into a mobility company that will lead mobility innovation beyond a navigation service. SK Telecom providing the T Map Service will set up a joint venture with Uber Technology, the world's largest mobility platform company, jointly promoting innovation in future mobility.
SK Telecom made an announcement on Oct. 16 that it decided to establish a mobility company that will quickly respond to the rapidly changing global mobility industry and provide innovative services, in a board meeting on Oct. 15. The mobility industry means overall services that increase people's mobility and logistics convenience through ICT, and is regarded as a hot item in future society.
SK Telecom will establish T Map Mobility Corporation (tentative name) within 2020 by separating the Mobility Business Group that has been promoting the T Map platform and T Map taxi business. An extraordinary shareholders' meeting will be held on Nov. 26, and the date of the split is set at Dec. 29.
T Map Mobility is planning to develop an ecosystem by cooperating with various domestic and foreign companies. T Map Mobility and Uber will create a new wave in the stagnant Korean taxi hailing market and provide innovative services to customers.
To that end, SK Telecom and Uber agreed to establish a joint venture for e-hailing joint projects such as taxi hailing services in the first half of 2021.
The joint venture is expected to launch an innovative taxi hailing business that increases consumer convenience by combining T Map Mobility's T-map taxi driver data and map/vehicle traffic analysis technology, Uber's global business operation experience, and platform technology.
In addition, Uber plans to invest more than US$100 million in the joint venture and US$50 million in T-Map Mobility to strengthen a strategic partnership between the two companies. Uber's total investment will exceed US$150 million.