- Completed acquisition of top private fast-charging company at the end of last year

- Expecting to begin full-fledged business operations in 2023 with new CEO, Cho Hyung-ki

- Improving customer convenience by continuously expanding infrastructure and seeking new business model to become the leading company in the electric vehicle (EV) charging industry

SK networks, which is strengthening its investment in the eco-friendly mobility business through its headquarters and subsidiaries, announced on January 3 that it completed the acquisition of SS Charger, the largest private EV fast-charging company in Korea at the end of last year. With this move, SK networks, which already holds SK rent-a-car as a subsidiary, is now one step closer to becoming the leading company in the EV-related market.

With SK rent-a-car, the company is building Korea’s largest EV charging complex on Jejudo Island and carrying out a plan to convert all 200,000 of its vehicles to EVs by 2030.

The newly-acquired SS Charger is currently operating 1,650 EV fast chargers and plans to install additional super-fast chargers at highway rest areas and 150 downtown locations within the first half of this year. In particular, it has secured excellent charging locations in Korea’s metropolitan areas through a number of partnerships with government organizations, automobile manufacturers, hypermarkets, and corporate taxi companies and achieved competitiveness by launching the industry’s first sub_ion-type membership, called “Lucky Pass.” It also expects the synergy with Everon, an EV slow-charging company in which SK networks invested early last year.

CEO Cho Hyung-ki, former head of the Planning Division at SK networks, has been appointed as the head of SS Charger, which will start anew in 2023. It is expected that a growth plan that combines strategy and investment will be promoted.

CEO Cho Hyung-ki said, “We will strengthen SS Charger’s fundamental competitiveness by leading the expansion of EV charging infrastructure through cooperative management that optimizes the expertise of our partners and actively seeks new opportunities related to the EV charging business. We will inform our customers of our new mission, which embodies the value of the new company, and make efforts to become the top company in the EV charging industry by offering greater customer convenience through our advanced technologies and services.”

SS Charger, an EV charging platform company, was a division of S Traffic before it was launched as a new business through a corporate split-off last November. Anchor Equity Partners Korea also participated in the investment with SK networks and joined the management as the second-largest shareholder.