The second largest EV charging service operator in the USA, Blink is entering the Korean market. Their announcement of many different service model will take on with Korean major companies. It is confirmed on the 17th that they started partnership negotiation with charging service providers including 3 manufacturers to enter the Korean market. Blink started the market research from 3Q last year, and it is known that they finalized the partner internally. It is expected that the partnership agreement will be signed within next month.
Blink is a listed company on NASDAQ in the USA and has about 180,000 members. They constructed and are operating about 23,000 charging stations all over the USA. They are the second largest charging infrastructure after the largest operator in the USA, ‘ChargePoint’. Blink provides services that does not exist in Korea yet, which are operating franchised charging stations, remote control solution of chargers, data analysis for customers and business. They have different rate system such as single rate plan according to amount of electricity used, fixedrateplan,memberships,andothers.
There are various types of chargers and facility power environment depending on customer’s environment. They have 10 different independent chargers from 2.9㎾level chargers for homes, up to ultra-fast charging with 175 ㎾. They also have controllable multi-channel product that can fast charge. It is known that Blink will form an infrastructure starting from public facilities in Korea. It is still not certain if they will utilize subsidies from Korea.
Most of charging operator is based on the government subsidies in Korea, therefore they have limited numbers of charging facilities and service models compared to the USA and Europe. Blink will fire up the competition in Korean service market by entering Korean market with chargers, charging fees and information services.
One of the CEO of charging service company said “In Korea, there will be about more than 300,000 EVs supplied in Korea, which enlarges charging market to attract Blink from the USA to enter the Korean market. With Blink entering the Korean market, it is expected that domestic charging market will be introduced with many private leading service models.”
By Staff Reporter Taejun Park(gaius@etnews.com)