[Friday Story] T Map Spin-off... SK Telecom's Grand Plan Dreaming of Becoming a 'Hyperconnector'

[Asia Economy Reporter Seulgina Cho] 'Hyperconnector.'

SK Telecom, the leading mobile carrier in South Korea, announced on the 16th the spin-off of its mobility division centered around 'T map,' which holds significance beyond just moving away from telecommunications. It reflects the management philosophy of SK Telecom CEO Park Jung-ho, who aims to transform the company into a big tech enterprise of the 4th Industrial Revolution era and play the role of a hyperconnector. The term hyperconnector, referring to the entity performing 'hyper-connect,' was also a candidate for SK Telecom's new mission proposed by CEO Park earlier this year.

On the same day, SK Telecom announced that it would split off the 'Mobility Business Unit' and establish 'T map Mobility Corporation (tentative name)' within the year. The establishment date is set for December 29. This will be decided at an extraordinary shareholders' meeting on November 26. The newly established company plans to comprehensively provide services including taxi, car-sharing, rental cars, designated driver services, and parking. In the long term, it will also challenge future mobility such as 'flying cars.' As the mobile telecommunications market has effectively reached saturation, SK Telecom, standing at a crossroads, has targeted mobility as the core of future new businesses that will become cash cows.

In the first half of next year, a joint venture with the global car-sharing company Uber will also be established for taxi-hailing and other joint businesses. Uber's total investment amount, including shares in the new company, will exceed $150 million (approximately 172.5 billion KRW). CEO Park said, "Through hyper-collaboration with companies possessing diverse capabilities, we will solve transportation challenges and ultimately strive to bring forward an era where flying cars enable travel between Seoul and the Gyeonggi area within 30 minutes."

The new company's name places the domestic largest navigation service T map ahead of SK. This reflects the intention to make T map, which has 18.5 million subscribers, a comprehensive mobility platform. Through this, the plan is to maximize competitiveness in the 4th Industrial Revolution by integrating mobility with artificial intelligence (AI), big data, and 5G mobile communications.

The spin-off of T map Mobility marks a step forward for SK Telecom as a hyperconnector. The mobility business is the fifth core business following mobile communications, media, security, and commerce, and is regarded as a foundation that can showcase comprehensive capabilities in future technologies such as AI and autonomous driving based on 5G. It is literally the business division most suitable for fulfilling the role of a hyperconnector as proposed by CEO Park. He has previously identified mobility and AI as sectors that could grow as large as the mobile communications division. SK Telecom explained, "We aim to grow T map Mobility to a corporate value of 4.5 trillion KRW by 2025."

SK Telecom's future strategy is also closely related to the group's governance restructuring. SK Group has announced plans to convert SK Telecom into an intermediate holding company. The securities industry views the spin-off of T map Mobility as a move to maximize SK Telecom's scale as an intermediate holding company through IPOs of subsidiaries such as 11st, ADT Caps, and One Store.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.