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The taxi booking app managed by South Korean tech conglomerate Kakao is ending the year well with more than 190,000 drivers on its platform

Image Credit: Vincent St. Thomas / Shutterstock

KakaoTaxi, a taxi booking app launched by South Korean tech conglomerate Kakao, recently announced hitting its 50 million requests milestone since it was launched in March this year, according to The Korea Times.

It also claimed to have received a million ride requests in its first two months of operations, and have partnered with more than 190,000 taxi drivers.

Also Read: Uber taps Kia for relaunch of premium black car service in South Korea

Taxi drivers in Korea can register with Kakao to receive booking requests when users of Kakao Taxi hail for a cab via the mobile application. The app currently only supports the Korean language.

While KakaoTaxi may have started with normal cabs available nationwide, it recently moved into the premium taxi space with KakaoTaxi Black, which lets users hail swanky Mercedes-Benz E-class vehicles driven by professionals trained by a “deluxe taxi operator”.

As for competition within the country, KakaoTaxi appears to be the dominant player in the taxi-booking field. While Uber is still in the picture, Kakao is making all the right moves by partnering up with local companies and taxi operators to increase its market share.

Kakao is also able to leverage the fact that it is running the country’s biggest chat app, which has 170 million users, as of February 2015 — a clear reason for partners to woo its taxi booking arm. After all, you’re either a partner of Kakao or you’re not.

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