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It was confirmed that a subsidiary of Kakao acquired two more surrogate driving companies last month. Despite the pouring criticism of Kakao, it continues to grow in size, and there are also movements to resist this.



Reporter Im Tae-woo covered this.



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Kakao Mobility entered the surrogate driving market by acquiring the industry's No. 1 service '1577 surrogate operation' operator in July.



Based on this acquisition, we acquired two additional surrogate driving companies just one month after the establishment of 'K-Drive', a joint venture.



As a result, it is expected that Kakao's market share for surrogate driving, which was in the 10% range, would have doubled.



[Kakao official: There are companies that are having a hard time because of Corona? A request came from such a place to take over... .] The



surrogate driver group strongly protested and demanded that the acquisition contract be immediately withdrawn.



[Jang Yu-jin/Chairman of Korea Association of Drivers Association: According to the recent announcement of Kakao's position,



Kakao has already

announced its will to withdraw from businesses that do not make money, and to earn more without withdrawing from other industries such as surrogate driving that makes money.]

In the taxi-hailing market, which has dominated more than 90%, local taxis from all over the world have started to build a competitive system.



In April, the number of local taxi calling apps created by the association of private taxis and corporate taxis in the Chungbuk region increased to 2,000, double the number of taxis registered at the time of launch.



2% of the fare is accumulated as mileage for users, and the taxi driver's fee is 5,000 won per month, which is less than 1/10 of that of Kakao T.



[Lee Tae-kyung/Taxi Driver: As it became a paid service, calls decreased a lot from our point of view.

I hope 'Ribbon Taxi' (calling app) fills a lot of calls.]



Local taxi calling apps are also spreading in Gwangju, Gyeongnam, and Jeju.



In Suwon, Daegu, and Iksan, local governments started building related apps, and Busan City is also developing a platform linked with local currency.



(Video coverage: Park Hyun-cheol, Kim Nam-seong, Lee Cheon-ki CJB, Video editing: Kim Jong-tae)