SK Telecom spins off mobility business

 

SK Telecom announced Thursday the mobile carrier’s shareholders approved the spinoff of its mobility business unit as part of enhancing the carrier’s future mobility solutions.

Approved by 99.98 percent of its shareholders, a new mobility business dubbed as T Map Mobility will be established on Dec. 29 as a wholly owned subsidiary.

The unit has been operating SKT’s T Map service, the largest mobile navigation service whose users doubled from its rival Kakao’s.

As previously announced, the new mobility firm will set up a joint venture with Uber to start a new taxi hailing service that will compete against Kakao T.

SKT aims to expand its presence in the mobility platform market and grow further overseas with the backing of Uber.

Through a presentation, SKT CEO Park Jung-ho pledged to provide a flying car service that will connect Seoul with Gyeonggi Province within 30 minutes.

“Mobility is the largest part of our lives after mobile,” said Park. “SKT is launching a specialized mobility business in order to innovate the way of moving with ICT technologies.”

By Song Su-hyun (song@heraldcorp.com)