Met Korea-Japan's Top Mobility Company... Kakao Mobility Expands Cooperation with 'GO'

Kakao Mobility announced on the 19th that it held a kickoff meeting to expand cooperation in the mobility sector with Japan's No.1 taxi-hailing app, GO (Go). The two companies plan to explore ways to create cooperation cases between overseas mobility platforms.

GO is a company launched in April 2020 by integrating the businesses of "Japan Taxi," operated by Japan's largest taxi company Japan Taxi Holdings group, and "Move" by Japanese IT company DeNA. Currently, the GO app is available in 90% of the prefectures across Japan.

Kakao Mobility announced on the 19th that it held a kickoff meeting to expand cooperation in the mobility sector with Japan's No.1 taxi-hailing app, "GO (Go)."
[Photo by Kakao Mobility]

Kakao Mobility began its cooperation with Japan Taxi, the predecessor of GO, by investing 1.5 billion yen in Japan Taxi in September 2018. In 2019, Kakao Mobility introduced the Kakao T roaming service in Japan for the first time, making Japan Taxi its first overseas expansion partner.

Through this discussion, the two companies talked about various cooperation ideas to enhance the mobility convenience for the citizens of both countries. First, since both countries are facing difficulties due to a sharp decline in taxi drivers after COVID-19, they agreed to brainstorm ways to expand taxi supply and optimize demand and supply by improving dispatch efficiency.

They plan to strengthen the interconnection between the two services to improve mobility convenience for citizens of both countries. Currently, Korean travelers entering Japan can use Japanese taxis connected to GO through Kakao T, but Japanese travelers visiting Korea cannot use Kakao T taxis through the GO app. The two companies will discuss linking GO’s demand side (passengers) with Kakao T’s supply side (taxis) so that Japanese tourists visiting Korea can use Korean taxis connected to Kakao T through the GO app they are already familiar with.

As a mid- to long-term task, the two companies also exchanged opinions on establishing a "Global Mobility Alliance" (tentative name). The company expects that building an alliance among global mobility platform operators will lay the foundation to contribute to revitalizing the tourism industry between countries. Through this kickoff meeting, they reached a mutual understanding on the direction of cooperation and plan to hold executive meetings and regular workshops in the future to concretize the implementation tasks.