Kakao Mobility, a transportation unit of South Korea’s largest messenger operator Kakao, is rapidly scaling up its fledgling taxi van service to take on the van-hailing giant Tada, whose core business was saved Wednesday with the acquittal of its executives.

Kakao T Venti, a taxi-hailing service of 11-seated vans, recently added 16 personal taxi drivers to its roster in Seoul, according to industry sources on Thursday.

Kakao launched a beta test of the service with affiliate taxi companies last December. It now employs 50 drivers but plans to hire 20 to 30 more to reach its goal of 100 drivers by next month.

It has started pitching to personal cab drivers in Seoul, offering taxi purchase subsidies of 7 million won ($5,840) to 200 applicants on a first-come, first-served basis.

Venti drivers would not be full-time employees receiving monthly wages but work on their own schedules, paying a 10 percent commission, Kakao Mobility said.

It appears to be stepping up its game after its bigger rival Tada on Wednesday was acquitted by the Seoul District Court of charges of running an illegal taxi business.

Launched in October 2018, Tada now operates 14,000 vans and has a robust user base of 1.7 million. Similar to Kakao T Venti, it runs a chauffeur-driven rental service on vans. But unlike Kakao, it has operated without a taxi license, by exploiting a legal loophole that allows private vehicles with 11 to 15 seats to offer rides for money.

Prosecution indicted Tada executives late last year for running an illegal taxi service, a charge that was ultimately struck down by the Wednesday ruling, which saw Tada as a legitimate rental car service.

But Tada is not out of the woods yet. The so-called “anti-Tada” bill, which aims to severely restrict its van-hailing activities, is still pending in parliament. Under the proposed bill, Tada can only operate for tourism purposes and needs to rent out the vans for more than six hours, with the pickup points restricted to airports or sea docks.

By Pulse

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