South Korean platform giant Kakao Corp.’s Kakao Mobility Co. is expanding its foreigner-exclusive taxi app service to 12 countries as part of a global expansion strategy.

Kakao Mobility announced on Thursday that it expanded the service area of its k.ride app, which was previously available only in Korea for inbound foreign travelers, to 12 countries. The countries are the United States, Canada, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Cambodia, and Saudi Arabia.

With the k.ride app, users can seamlessly access various ride-hailing services that are integrated with major local mobility providers when traveling abroad. K.ride is Kakao Mobility’s first global mobility platform designed exclusively for foreign users, who can sign up quickly by entering their phone number and verifying their identity via Google, Apple, or email authentication.

The app also features automatic translation in over 100 languages including English, Chinese, Japanese, Thai, and Arabic to minimize language barriers when searching for destinations or chatting with drivers. It supports automatic payments via international credit cards and offers overseas mobile payment options as well, enhancing payment convenience.

The app has provided ride-hailing services such as Kakao T Blue, Venti, Black, and Premium taxis to foreign tourists visiting Korea from over 100 countries since its launch. It topped 600,000 taxi ride requests in Korea and has recorded over 600,000 downloads globally across app stores in more than 100 countries as of March 2025. Data showed that 58 percent of k.ride users come from China, Japan, the United States, Taiwan, and Singapore.

Kakao Mobility plans to enhance its services for foreign visitors even further based on accumulated data from k.ride.

“We will continue to enhance our global mobility platform to ensure that anyone, anywhere in the world can conveniently access mobility services via k.ride,” Kakao Mobility Chief Executive Officer Ryu Geung-seon said.

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