Park Jung-ho (L), CEO of South Korea’s top mobile carrier SK Telecom, shakes hands with Anthony Tan, founder and CEO of Southeast Asia’s No. 1 ride-hailing app, Grab. They signed an agreement to establish a joint venture during a ceremony held at SKT’s headquarters in Seoul on Jan. 30, 2019. (image: SK Telecom)
SEOUL, Jan. 30 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s top mobile carrier SK Telecom Co. said Wednesday it will partner with Grab, Southeast Asia’s largest ride-hailing app, to provide real-time navigation services based on big data.
SK Telecom and Grab signed an agreement to establish a joint venture, Grab Geo Holdings, in charge of developing advanced ride-hailing services in Southeast Asia.
With 135 million downloads, Grab is the operator of the world’s third-largest ride-hailing app, trailing China’s Didi Chuxing and Uber of the U.S.
The Korean telecom giant operates the nation’s leading map and navigation app, T-map, with 11.5 million subscribers.
The two companies expect the joint venture to develop various location-based services by combining SKT’s map and navigation technology and Grab’s vast traffic and road data in Southeast Asia.
Established in 2012, Grab offers ride-sharing services in 336 cities in eight Southeast Asian nations, including Singapore, the Philippines and Thailand.
As a first step, the joint venture will introduce real-time navigation for Grab users in Singapore in the first quarter, the companies said.
“The joint venture will be a starting point to greatly affect the way people use the mobility service in the Southeast Asian region,” SK Telecom CEO Park Jung-ho said in a signing ceremony. “We will push to foster various growth drivers in the global mobility market.”
Grab CEO Anthony Tan said his company will take a “hyper-local strategy” to reflect different transportation and payment infrastructure in multiple markets.
(Yonhap)
