At a press conference for the newly launched service ‘Where to Go’, T Map Mobility announced that they will be introducing a service that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to recommend personalized places based on user’s movement data. The service aims to increase sales by 60% by 2027 by applying course recommendations and conversational large-language model (LLM) features to further enhance user convenience. They also expressed their ambition to achieve over 70 billion won in sales in the data business this year based on the accumulated data from the service.
The service, called ‘Where to Go’, analyzes user movement data to recommend places and even suggest travel routes in the future. Through features like ‘Nearby Discovery’, ‘Detailed Location and Reviews’, ‘Certification Badges’, ‘Recommendation Searches’, ‘Recommendations during Travel’, and ‘Business Places’, the service offers various ways for users to explore and discover personalized locations.
The press conference unveiled plans to incorporate a new feature called ‘Recommendation Search’ that allows users to search for places using specific keywords instead of exact names. Additionally, there will be a ‘Travel Recommendation’ service that suggests popular food spots along the travel route. The service also includes a ‘Business Place’ feature where businesses can manage detailed information such as operating hours, menu, and parking.
T Map Mobility intends to utilize the data accumulated through the service to enhance the profitability of the data business. They aim to achieve over 700 billion won in data business revenue this year and continue growing with a target of more than 50% increase by 2027. The company plans to expand traffic from services beyond navigation to nurture core businesses based on learning both structured and unstructured data. They also plan to broaden partnerships for the advanced utilization of map, road information, and real-time traffic data through analytical services.
In addition to ‘Where to Go’, T Map Mobility introduced an upgraded T Map Business Platform which provides marketing features such as coupons and customer information for business owners to use. They also plan to enhance the T Map Auto platform for vehicle integration with T Map data to improve services.
During the conference, it was mentioned that T Map Mobility is in discussions with OEMs to combine car data with T Map data for various services. The potential of finding different data values, such as driving habits linked to usage-based insurance (UBI) or assessing residual value when selling used cars, was also discussed.
Regarding plans for the company’s IPO, the CEO of T Map Mobility stated that they are working closely with key investors to progress towards specific IPO schedules, including the selection of lead underwriters for 2025. The focus for this year is on building a growth-centric business portfolio with expectations of achieving profitability within 1-2 years from a productivity standpoint. Data business models, including ‘Where to Go’, were emphasized as key to their strategy.
Lastly, the company addressed the situation where drivers using the T Map Mobility application experienced a 5-hour delay on an alternate route during the Chuseok holiday. They acknowledged the issue, promised a comprehensive investigation into all national alternative routes to refine algorithms, and are working on preventing similar incidents in the future.