Ride-hailing Tada will increase its taxi fleet to 10,000 units and the number of staff drivers to 50,000 by the end of next year with a broader service area across the county, said Value Creators & Company (VCNC), Korean mobility startup and subsidiary of car-sharing platform SoCar, said on Monday.

Tada has achieved a milestone of 1.25 million regular customers with some 1,400 vans and 9,000 registered drivers since the launch of its service in October last year, the company said, adding its new goal is to build a network in partnership with taxi companies and optimize supply and demand economics based on advanced artificial intelligence technology.

In addition, the company will expand its service areas to large cities across the country beyond Seoul and its surrounding areas by considering geographic characteristics, while boosting investment to sophisticate its AI and data-driven platform.

"Tada has attracted more than 100,000 subscribers each month in the past year, and its cumulative distance run by Tada vans is equivalent to traveling around the Earth 886 times or 172 years in total in the past year,” said Park Jae-wook, head of VCNC.

Tada will create a better working environment by improving pay and benefits for drivers based on their performance and launching finance support programs, while replacing all diesel engines to be more environmentally friendly, and investing more for the mobility industry, he added

Tada’s survival has been rare in Korea where a number of ride-sharing names including Uber and Kakao Mobility had to fold the business at fledgling stage due to protest from die-hard cab drivers.

By Lee Yong-ik and Minu Kim

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