“Seoul ~ Bundang will open the era of 30 minutes”… Launched SKT mobility business

SK Telecom established the’Tmap Mobility Company’ on the 29th by dividing the’Mobility Business Group’, which has been promoting the T Map platform and T Map taxi business. The photo shows the model using T-map. [SK텔레콤 제공]

Tmap Mobility Company (Tmap Mobility) spun off by SK Telecom will be officially launched. In partnership with Uber Technology (Uber), an American vehicle sharing company, it will start a full-fledged mobility platform business that encompasses taxi calls, proxy driving, rental cars, and public transportation.

On the 29th, SK Telecom divided the mobility business group, which has been servicing the navigation’Tmap’ and the taxi calling service’Tmap Taxi’, to establish a new corporation, Tmap Mobility, and appointed Lee Jong-ho, former head of SK Telecom’s Mobility Business Division, as the CEO. Tmap Mobility’s capital is 5 billion won and assets are 18 billion won. The goal is to increase the corporate value to 4.5 trillion won in the next five years.

SK Telecom President Park Jeong-ho said at the extraordinary shareholders’ meeting held last month, “Mobility is the next largest part of our daily life after mobile,” and said, “We are launching a specialized company to create a new breeze in the mobility ecosystem.” He added, “We will present a mobility life platform that encompasses proxy driving, parking, and public transportation, including a flying car that connects Seoul and the Gyeonggi area within 30 minutes.”

For now, we will build a business model that provides the Mobility Life platform as a subscription. Its core business is ▶Parking, advertisement, insurance-linked products ▶Vehicle infotainment ▶Taxi, proxy driving calls ▶Vehicle, bicycle, electric kickboard sharing service, etc. Among them, the business is carried out by providing the products desired by users in packages and paying monthly fees. The plan is to lay the groundwork for sales through a navigation tee map of 18 million subscribers.

Former SKT Mobility Business Manager Lee Jong-ho was appointed as the CEO of Tmap Mobility on the 29th. [티맵모빌리티 제공]

In the mid- to long-term, the plan is to implement future mobility such as flying cars. President Park said, “We will cooperate with companies with various capabilities to solve traffic problems and accelerate the era of moving to flying cars.” To this end, it will develop a navigation system for flying cars, a 3D high-definition map, and an intelligent air traffic control system.

Cooperation with Uber will also be promoted in earnest. Uber directly invests 50 million dollars (about 57.5 billion won) in Tmap Mobility. Separately, Uber and Tmap Mobility each set up a taxi calling joint venture with a total cost of $200 million at a 51:49 ratio.

Uber, the world’s largest vehicle sharing company, unveiled a flying taxi, the so-called’flying car’ concept car in Washington DC last year. Uber’s’flying car’ is powered by electric power and is designed as a combination of helicopters, fixed-wing airplanes and drones. Vertical take-off and landing are also possible. [AFP]

When Tmap Mobility with technology and capital is launched, it is predicted that there will be a disruption in the existing domestic mobility market. Currently, Kakao Mobility is the number one in the domestic mobility market. With the’Kakao T’app, it has a diverse portfolio of taxis, bikes (electric bicycles), proxy driving, parking, navigation, and intercity buses. In particular, Kakao T’s share of taxi calls reaches 80%.

Socar has suffered from the interruption of the’Tada’ service so far, but in October, it attracted an investment of 60 billion won, becoming the first domestic mobility company to become a unicorn (corporate value of over $1 billion). Hyundai Motor Company also announced that it would provide related services, saying that it would convert into a smart mobility solution company. It is predicted that Tmap Mobility, which has Uber on his back, will be added to this to preempt the mobility market.

Structure of cooperation between SKT and Uber. [SKT 제공]

Professor Seon Woo Myung-ho of Hanyang University’s Department of Future Vehicle Engineering said, “It is a global trend that the mobility market is reorganized to be service-oriented.” “When the era of autonomous driving in the future, vehicle location information becomes very important. We will be able to increase the value.”

Reporter Park Hyung-soo [email protected]