SK Telecom will work together with Grab, which is the biggest car sharing company in Southeast Asia, to push for the "Map & Navigation" business.
SK Telecom President Park Jung-ho and Grab CEO Anthony Tan signed an agreement to set up Grab Geo Holdings, a joint venture, at SK Telecom's headquarters in central Seoul on Jan. 30.
Based on the know-how accumulated through T-Map service for 17 years, SK Telecom will be in charge of overall direction of technologies, development of roadmaps and strategies from development of new products to commercialization of products.
Founded in 2012, Grab is the Southeast Asia's largest car-sharing service provider that operates taxis, motorcycles, and limousines in 336 cities in eight countries, including Singapore, the Philippines and Thailand. It currently has 135 million downloads based on accumulated mobile apps, and ranks third among global car-sharing companies after China's Didi and Uber of the United States.
"The establishment of the joint venture will be a starting point that will greatly impact and change the way mobility services are used in Southeast Asia. We will continue to drive new growth in our global mobility business," said President Park.
Meanwhile, CEO Anthony Tan said, "Grap uses Hyper Local as its core strategy by adding new roads in the East Asia every day. The combination of SK Telecom's map and navigation technology and Grab's regional data will be of great help to this strategy."