[Iclickart]
SEOUL -- SK Telecom, South Korea's top mobile carrier, is looking for a fresh goods company as it develops technologies related to artificial intelligence (AI) and internet of things (IoT) to create a new paradigm in the country's stagnant e-commerce market.
"We are trying to acquire a fresh goods company. I think we can get some results by the end of this year," an SK Telecom official told Aju News Thursday on condition of anonymity. The planned acquisition will mark SK's first step to nurture its online mall 11STREET as the Korean version of Amazon.
SK Planet, the mobile carrier's subsidiary, runs 11STREET. SK Telecom said last month that it would separate the shopping mall in September this year and expand its business out to the fresh goods market.
Amazon, an American online shopping service, launched AmazonFresh, a grocery delivery service, in 2017. The fresh goods service offers shoppers with groceries as well as some popular items from Amazon's online storefront. Amazon also sells prepackaged meal kits through its fresh goods service.
In South Korea, social commerce platforms and online stores operated by hypermarket franchises offer online grocery shopping and a one-day-delivery system but their service cannot match Amazon's.
"Competition for the top place in the online shopping market is very fierce as there is no dominant company like Amazon yet. It's good for 11STREET to follow the footsteps of the American shopping giant," the official said,
SK Telecom plans to have shoppers use the company's AI voice assistant NUGU to order groceries. Because the AI service is linked with AI, big data and IoT, the shopping experience of users will accelerate the development of related skills.
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
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