T Map Mobility, Kakao Make Forays into ‘Middle-Mile’ Market

This Sept. 23, 2020, file photo shows CJ Logistics workers busy at a terminal in Gimpo, outside of Seoul, ahead of the annual Chuseok holiday. (Yonhap)

SEOUL, Jan. 19 (Korea Bizwire) — The local market for middle-mile delivery, a business-to-business (B2B) logistics that delivers goods from factories to logistics warehouses or sales outlets by truck, is emerging as a new battleground for mobility platforms.

T Map Mobility, a mobility unit under telecom operator SK Telecom Co., acquired a 100 percent stake in local middle-mile startup YLP in June last year, and expanded its cumulative investment to more than 100 billion won (US$83.8 million) through a paid-in capital increase last month.

YLP introduced a digital method to track the allocation of trucks in real-time as well as to match low-cost transportation companies with end-user companies. It also provides an online settlement system.

T Map Mobility integrated YLP’s services into its T map navigation service, aimed at expanding its presence in the middle-mile market on the back of its competitive edge as the provider of the nation’s largest navigation service.

Its rival Kakao Corp. is pushing to step into the market through its artificial intelligence (AI) unit Kakao Enterprise Corp.

Kakao Enterprise started a trial of ‘KakaoTras,’ a middle-mile service similar to the one offered by YLP, for food and beverage company Hy, previously known as Korea Yakult, last month.

In addition to intermediary delivery, KakaoTras also sets up a customized computerization system depending on end users’ service conditions such as the type of goods and delivery frequency.

The KakaoTras service will be officially launched within the first half of this year.

Ashley Song (ashley@koreabizwire.com)