Traveling with a pet has never been easy for Kim Hye-in, a 30-year-old Pomeranian owner.

“I hate to confine my dog in a stuffy cabin whenever I take public transport. It suffocates her,” Kim said. Sometimes bus drivers stop her from hopping on board with her fluffy companion.

For pet owners like Kim, “pet taxis” are an appealing alternative. From vet pick-ups to pet ambulances, chauffeur service for pets have sprung across the country since 2017 when the service got the go-ahead. Most in the trade are small, independent cab owners. And Kakao Mobility, operator of the major taxi-hailing service Kakao T, is now joining the game.

The company’s announcement to launch “Kakao T Pet” next month comes just about a year after the mobility giant acquired the country’s leading pet taxi startup, Pet Me Up.

Backed by the deep-pocketed Kakao subsidiary, each cab will accommodate pet-exclusive needs with safety fences and pet car seats. The service also offers specialized health coverages, more comprehensive than insurance plans offered by smaller rivals that treat pets as mere “objects.”

The new Kakao service is expected to attract customers who face trouble booking pet taxis, especially outside of Seoul. Throw in a widely popular mobility platform, and Kakao will likely edge out its smaller competitors already saturating the market.

Consumer convenience and the growing demand for animal rights have pushed Kakao to dabble in the pet transport industry.

But experts question how long the service would stand. The pet transport market, in the end, is mostly limited to single-person households without a car, they said. It cited the case of KST Mobility, the operator of Macaron Taxi, that had to halt its pet taxi service in April, less than a year after it launched in July 2020.

Instead, experts point to Kakao’s ambitions to cement itself as an all-rounded player in the mobility field.

The company has extended its business to bikes, trains and parking lots. The pet taxi service will further boost the company’s mobility portfolio, which brings different forms of transport services into a single platform.

Greater leniency in running the business is another factor.

Pet taxis are classified as an “animal transport service,“ not a “passenger transport service.” A driver who has driven a car for more than two years and owns a car less than 8 years old is eligible for the pet transport service. The requirements are much less complicated than acquiring a passenger taxi license. Industry watchers say Kakao will use its pet service as a test bed for ride-hailing, which is, in principle, banned in Korea. 

(dianahn@heraldcorp.com)