KaKao

Seoul, Korea - February 14, 2018

Kakao Mobility, a mobility arm of South Korea's top mobile messaging app service provider Kakao, announced today it acquires the entire stake of LUXI, a local carpool startup.

Kakao Mobility, the operator of South Korea's leading cab-hailing, navigation, parking and chauffeur service platform Kakao T, said it plans to utilize LUXI's carpool platform to further complement its ride-hailing service, especially during the peak times when demand for taxis is high.

A data released by the Company shows that ride-hailing requests via its mobile app Kakao T on December 18, 2017 between 8 am to 9 am stood at some 230,000 while the number of available taxis at the time was about 26,000 which means 80% of requests have not been met.

The Company has witnessed a continued growth in demand for the cab-hailing service with the number of Kakao T app users surpassing 17 million and daily maximum booking calls of 2.4 million as of December 2017.

John Jung, Kakao Mobility CEO said, "LUXI is a business partner who truly understands our vision of making every moment of our app users' journey faster, safer and more convenient." Jung added, "We are working on various ways for Kakao T's sustainable growth, and for benefiting all of our business partners."

Choi Ba-da, LUXI's CEO, said, "It's our pleasure to have the opportunity to work with Kakao Mobility. We will continue to make efforts for safe and comfortable ride-sharing culture to take roots, and thus to support the public transportation sector in an environmentally friendly way."

Kakao Mobility is gearing up for solidifying its presence as an integrated mobility platform by expanding the partner base for its parking service and further advancing navigation service features.

Within the first half of this year, the Company plans to introduce new mobility services including a tax-hailing service specifically for corporates, and the integration of Kakao's mobile e-wallet service Kakao Pay into its app for better user experience.

Kakao Mobility expects its new services will create new demand for its app and thus improve its partner drivers' profitability further, as an annual income of its partner drivers went up 13% plus in the first year of the introduction of its Kakao T app.
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About Kakao Mobility
Kakao Mobility is South Korea's leading mobility service provider spun off from Kakao in August 2017. Under the philosophy of "Make every moment of users' journey faster, safer and more convenient", Kakao Mobility operates Kakao T, the mobility app for cab-hailing, navigation, parking and chauffeur service. In June 2017, Kakao Mobility attracted $461 million (KRW 500 billion) investment via a strategic partnership with a consortium led by a U.S. private equity fund TPG.

About Kakao
Kakao, better known as South Korea's largest mobile messaging app operator, is an integrated mobile lifestyle platform company with services including mobile messaging (Kakao Talk), gaming (Kakao Games), music (Melon), e-mail (Daum Mail), search (Daum Search), news (Daum News), and more. With the mission of "Connect Everything", Kakao is dedicated to creating an ecosystem of connectivity where people can stay connected with family and friends by sharing what matters to them. For more, please visit at www.kakaocorp.com.


Press Contact
Jeff Kim
Communications Manager
jeff.kim@kakaocorp.com
+82-02-6718-2889