S Korea’s Kakao Mobility teams up with Vietnam EV maker VinFast

Kakao Mobility, a subsidiary of South Korea's tech giant Kakao Corp., has entered into a partnership with Vietnamese electric vehicle producer VinFast to boost transportation infrastructure in Vietnam by collaborating with domestic industry players.

Kakao Mobility has joined a wave of South Korean companies expanding in the Vietnamese market with business cooperation MoUs signed in Hanoi during South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s visit to Vietnam June 22-24 to boost economic and trade ties.

The Kakao Mobility-VinFast partnership includes plans to integrate Green and Smart Mobility (GSM), an electric taxi rental platform within the Vingroup network, with ride-hailing service Kakao T.

Kakao Mobility said in a release that Vietnam is emerging as one of the most popular tourist destinations for South Koreans, while South Korea saw roughly 300,000 Vietnamese tourists visit the country in the past year.

The firm also said it is in talks with Vietnamese information technology giant FPT to set up collaborations with domestic startup businesses.

Vietnam welcomed 4.6 million foreign arrivals in the first five months of this year, equal to 57.5% of the year's target of eight million, according to the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT). South Korea was Vietnam's top source market in the period with 1.3 million arrivals, followed by China and the U.S. with 399,000 and 307,000 arrivals, respectively.

Established in 2017 by Vingroup founder and chairman Pham Nhat Vuong as his conglomerate’s car unit, VinFast has gradually become a prominent player in the Southeast Asian EV landscape. It is also expanding in the U.S., Canadian, and European markets.

Vuong launched GSM in March in partnership with Vietnamese ride-hailer Be Group to utilize electric vehicles in ride-hailing services.

Kakao Mobility said this March it had acquired the British ride-hailing startup Splyt as part of its plans to go abroad. The acquisition “will help Kakao Mobility secure a foothold to tap into the global mobility market", the company said, but did not disclose the financial terms of the deal or its stake in Splyt.

Founded in 2015 in London, Splyt is a platform providing connections for overall transportation services from ride-hailing and food delivery to travel and public transport. Splyt partners with global mobility and hotel reservation service apps like Uber, Grab, Booking.com and Trip.com., as well as Chinese firms like Alipay and WeChat, linking 2 billion users in 150 countries across the world, according to the company.