SUMMARY
The ride-hailing giant said it will expand the service across India by the end of 2024 and will set up an extensive charging network for its fleet
Ola said that the service will be chargeable at INR 25 for every 5 km, adding that it has so far facilitated 17.5 Lakh ebike rides
Ola began piloting ebike service in Bengaluru in September 2023 after the state government cracked the whip on bike taxis operating in the city
Ride-hailing giant Ola on Friday (January 26) announced the launch of its ebike service in two new cities – Delhi and Hyderabad.
As part of the expansion plans, Ola Mobility will deploy more than 10,000 electric vehicles (EVs) in the two cities over the course of next two months. The company also said that it will double down and expand the service across India by the end of this year.
In a statement, Ola said it will also set up an extensive charging network in all new areas it forays in.
Prior to this, the service was being piloted only in Bengaluru. Ola launched its electric bike taxi services in the startup hub last September after the state government cracked the whip on bike taxis operating in the city.
“Following the massive success of our Bengaluru ebike taxi pilot, we have proven its sustainable value proposition for all ecosystem participants – the consumer (lower price), the driver (higher earnings), and Ola (new category and revenues), and now look at mass deployments across Bengaluru, Delhi and Hyderabad and build a larger market for ebike taxis in India,” said Ola Mobility’s newly-appointed CEO Hemant Bakshi.
Ola said that the service will be chargeable at INR 25 for every 5 km and reiterated that the launch is in line with its ambition of catering to 100 Cr Indians.
Touting its numbers, the company said it has acquired a 40% market share in the ebike category in Bengaluru in the three months since the launch of the service in September 2023. It also claimed to have facilitated 17.5 Lakh rides via its ebikes so far and set up 200 charging stations across Bengaluru to service its ebike fleet.
Earlier on Thursday, Ola Mobility claimed that it was clocking more than 20,000 average bookings a day within four months of the launch of Bengaluru pilot.
Post the launch, Ola was seen aggressively wooing ebike drivers with the promise of a monthly income of more than INR 70,000 per month, as per a pamphlet distributed at an onboarding centre in the city late last year.
However, this mobility push is nothing new. At a glitzy event on Thursday, the company appointed Bakshi as the new CEO of Ola Mobility and announced that its India mobility business broke even with a ‘segment-adjusted’ EBITDA of INR 250 Cr in FY23 (versus an EBITDA loss of INR 66 Cr in FY22).
Besides ride hailing, the company also laid out its plans for ‘aggressive growth’ in the areas of financial services, logistics, and ecommerce.
Ola’s Push Beyond Mobility
In a report released on Thursday, Ola said its future growth trajectory will move ‘beyond mobility to commerce.’
The Bhavish Aggarwal-led company said it is leaning on its existing mobility user base of over 130 Mn customers, partnerships with Ola Electric and GenAI platform Ola Krutrim, and exciting synergies in the financial services business to scale up its ‘ambitious aspirations’ in mobility and commerce spaces.
Ola has been rapidly expanding its umbrella of offerings in the past one year. In October, it launched its all-electric on-demand delivery service, Ola Parcel, in Bengaluru to take on incumbents Swiggy Genie and Dunzo.
In November, the company joined hands with the ONDC to offer last-mile delivery services to sellers on the platform. Earlier last year, the company was also said to be internally experimenting with a food delivery feature on its native ride-hailing app.
Within three months of the launch of its parcel service in October, the company claimed to have witnessed a 4X surge in deliveries from use cases beyond ride hailing (food and parcel delivery). Terming state-backed ONDC a ‘real game changing opportunity’ for the company, Ola said it will continue to leverage its scale in mobility to create opportunities in the logistics space.
Citing its electrification push, Ola, in the report, also said that the ebike model allows it to tap into a ‘multi-work opportunity’ whereby its delivery partners could be leveraged for other use cases such as parcel delivery as well as food and grocery delivery during their ‘slack period’.
Ola Mobility also plans to foray into additional categories and has set its eyes on facilitating 500 Mn EV rides this year.
On the financial services front, the ride-hailing company claimed to have nearly 6 Mn active users on its platform that caters to segments such as payments, lending, among others. It also claimed to have nearly quadrupled its GMV across lending, asset financing and insurance between FY21 and FY23.
However, losses continue to be a headache for the company. ANI Technologies, the parent of Ola, earlier said it slashed its consolidated net loss by nearly half to INR 772.2 Cr in FY23 from INR 1,522.3 Cr in FY22. Meanwhile, sales jumped 42% YoY to INR 2,799.3 Cr in the year ended March 2023.
