Tmap Mobility is adding non-driving features in succession, including walking directions and short-form videos, to move beyond its car navigation–centric service structure. As rivals Naver Map and Kakao Map have quickly grown their user bases by offering everything from place discovery to walking and driving directions, the company aims to broaden its service scope to win new users.
However, many features such as walking directions are already offered by competing apps, and the app structure remains driver-centric, leading to criticism that simply adding features will not easily drive user growth.
According to the industry on the 5th, Tmap Mobility said on the 3rd that it would launch a "walking directions" service for pedestrians. Like car navigation, this feature automatically moves the map screen according to the pedestrian's direction of travel and alerts in advance where to change direction. If a user strays from the guided route, it identifies the current location in real time and suggests a new optimal route. Linked with the place recommendation service "Where shall we go," it also recommends places within a 1-kilometer radius that are walkable from the current location.
On the 13th, a "short-form" feature was also added that lets users record and share places they visited as short videos. After watching a short-form video introducing a specific place, users can check business hours, menus, and reviews, save it as an interested place, or get directions right away. For safety, however, short-form videos are not shown during actual navigation.
Tmap Mobility is expanding its service areas because demand is growing to handle everything from destination search to travel in a single app. Naver Map and Kakao Map have broadened their user bases by connecting the flow from place searches such as restaurants and travel spots to directions. In contrast, the Tmap app has been focused on car navigation, making its limitations clear at the exploration stage when users pick a destination, as they peel off to other platforms such as portals, social media (SNS), and generative artificial intelligence (AI).
As this trend continued, growth of the Tmap app also entered a stagnant phase. According to Mobile Index, the app's monthly active users (MAU) slipped 1.1% to 14.88 million in July from 15.05 million in July 2023. By contrast, over the same period, Naver Map, which broadened user touchpoints by connecting place searches and directions, grew 22.2% from 24.77 million to 30.26 million, and Kakao Map rose 24.8% from 10.65 million to 13.29 million.
Over the same period, Tmap's monthly total usage time fell 21.1% from 109.04 million hours to 86 million hours. Meanwhile, Naver Map increased 62.2% from 32.58 million hours to 52.83 million hours, and Kakao Map rose 16.0% from 12.9 million hours to 14.96 million hours. Given that the Tmap app typically runs continuously while a car is being driven, its total usage time remains the longest, but both user numbers and usage time have retreated.
In addition, the industry sees the government's conditional approval in Feb. for overseas transfer of Google's 1:5,000-scale high-definition map data as a factor heightening Tmap Mobility's sense of crisis. The measure opened the way for Google to enhance navigation features such as car routing, which had been restricted domestically. If Google Maps, used by more than 2 billion people monthly worldwide, enters the domestic navigation market, the Tmap app's position could weaken further.
In this situation, it remains uncertain whether Tmap Mobility's service expansion will lead to tangible results. The newly introduced walking directions are already offered by Naver Map and Kakao Map, prompting assessments that it will be hard to establish as a differentiator unique to Tmap.
Another limitation is that the app's user experience (UX) remains driver-centric. When "Seoul Station" is searched in the Tmap app, information needed by drivers such as car directions and parking availability is prioritized. In contrast, Naver Map and Kakao Map place front and center information that pedestrians and general visitors frequently look for, including nearby restaurants and Airport Railroad and high-speed rail. To attract non-driving users, critics say the app overall must be improved beyond simply adding features, including search results and information layout.
A Tmap Mobility official said, "Tmap has advanced its services into a mobility platform that consolidates before, during, and after travel based on AI and data, and has continuously strengthened users' place discovery and travel convenience," adding, "We are continuously improving the UI/UX to enhance usability for customers who use a variety of transportation modes."