The commercialization of fully autonomous driving is approaching, making vehicle driving data increasingly valuable in South Korea's mobility sector. As investment activities and management transactions heat up, the focus is on the significance of the driving data these companies have secured.
On November 3, analysts noted that the value of driving data held by domestic mobility companies surpasses that of their platform value. Each platform has gathered various vehicle operation data, including actual user travel routes, traffic flow, and dispatch information.
For fully autonomous driving, artificial intelligence (AI) must learn from diverse driving data and make appropriate decisions. The more quality data available, the more sophisticated and intelligent the AI becomes.
Kakao Mobility is currently embroiled in a management dispute between its largest shareholder, Kakao, and its second-largest shareholder, private equity firm TPG, which has escalated to international arbitration. Kakao opposes TPG's claims regarding a breach of contract related to Kakao Mobility's American Depositary Receipt (ADR) listing. TPG has been seeking to recover its investment in Kakao Mobility, and the failure of this listing has intensified the conflict.
Kakao Mobility is a key revenue source for Kakao and a central pillar of future mobility initiatives. The user travel patterns and dispatch data obtained through its taxi-hailing service, KakaoT, along with navigation-based road driving data, are valuable assets for advancing autonomous driving technology.
Tmap Mobility is gaining attention due to its efforts to sell management rights. Global investment bank Goldman Sachs is in negotiations with SK Square, Tmap's largest shareholder, to acquire management rights. Discussions suggest an investment of approximately 700 billion to 800 billion won to secure a 60 to 70 percent stake.
Goldman Sachs reportedly views the mobility data accumulated through Tmap's navigation services as a key growth driver for the future.
Socar is expanding its business beyond data acquisition to utilize this data for autonomous driving AI learning. Earlier this year, it established a Future Mobility Task Force under CEO Park Jae-wook and formed a joint venture, Apex Mobility, with Krafton, investing 150 billion won specifically for autonomous driving.
With 15 years of experience in the car-sharing business, Socar possesses a wealth of vehicle operation information and accident data as core assets. Its accumulated 220,000 accident records are considered a unique asset for training autonomous driving AI, as they can be used to learn from exceptional situations that are not commonly encountered in regular driving, such as pedestrians suddenly entering the road or abrupt lane changes.
Industry experts predict that as Hyundai Motor Group has indicated a target for the commercialization of autonomous driving by 2028 to 2029, competition for data between automakers and mobility platforms will intensify. A mobility industry insider stated, "With the government significantly easing regulatory restrictions on autonomous driving demonstrations, the key challenge for the industry will now be how effectively to process and utilize the secured data for AI learning."
* This article has been translated by AI.
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