SK Telecom and Uber are uniting to form a joint venture and partnership aimed at boosting the ride-hailing giant's services in South Korea.
The country's telecommunications giant is spinning off its mobility business to create the JV, in a bid to "create opportunities in the taxi-hailing market in Korea and explore new areas, including future mobility services."
For its part, Uber will invest $50 million upfront and then a further $100 million in a joint venture structure, the pair say in a statement.
T Map Mobility (SK's existing mobility wing) will integrate its network of drivers and mapping technology with Uber's ride-hailing platform.
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The new unit is slated to begin operations during the first half of 2021. Uber will own 51% of the JV and T Map Mobility the remaining share.
Uber already operates taxi-hailing services in South Korea but has failed to unseat the existing major player in the country, known as Kakao.
The decision to ramp up its interests in Asia comes some 18 months after Uber pulled out of a string of countries in the region.
Uber claimed consolidation was not the "strategy of the day" after a "merger" of its Southeast Asian business with Singapore-based Grab.
The agreement included giving Uber a 27.5% stake in the combined entity and Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi a seat on Grab's board of directors.
Uber's interests in Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines came to an end and put the services in the hands of its previous closest competitor.
The deal followed similar restructuring in 2016, when it got out of China by way of an agreement with Didi, plus 2017's decision to leave Russia and sell to Yandex.