Ola Cabs

Ola Cabs
Private
Industry
Founded 3 December 2010 (2010-12-03) in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
Founder Bhavish Aggarwal
Ankit Bhati
Headquarters Bangalore, Karnataka, India[1]
Area served
 India, Australia, UK (169 cities)
Key people
 Bhavish Aggarwal (CEO)
Ankit Bhati (CTO)
Products Mobile app, website
Services
Revenue ₹758 crore (US$110 million)[2] (FY 2016)
Number of employees
 6,000 (2017)
Subsidiaries Foodpanda India
Website olacabs.com

Ola Cabs (stylised as OLΛ), is an Indian origin online transportation network company developed by ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd. As of April 2017, Ola was valued at $3 billion.[3][4]

Ola Cabs was founded on 3 December 2010 as an online cab aggregator in Mumbai, and is now based in Bangalore. As of 2018, the company has expanded to a network of more than 1,000,000 vehicles across 169 cities. In November 2014, Ola diversified to incorporate autorickshaws on a trial basis in Bangalore.[5] After the trial phase, Ola Auto expanded to other cities like Delhi,Cuttack Pune, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kolkata starting in December 2014. In December 2015, Ola expanded its auto Services in Lucknow, Bikaner, Kota, West Bengal, Mysore, Chandigarh, Indore, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Guwahati, Vijayawada, Guntur and Visakhapatnam. In January 2018, Ola extended into its first overseas market, Australia, and has plans to eventually run the service in Sydney and Melbourne - having arrived in Perth in late February.[6] In September 2018, Ola announced to expand its business by launching operations in New Zealand as well.[7]

History

In March 2014, OlaCabs acquired Bangalore based taxi service TaxiForSure for approximately US$200 million.[8] From 25 June 2015, Ola users have gained access to TFS cabs via the Ola mobile application.[9] In November 2015, Ola acquired Geotagg, a trip-planning applications company, for an undisclosed sum.[10]

In December 2017, Ola acquired Foodpanda's business in India.[11]. In April 2018, Ola made its second acquisition with Ridlr (formerly Traffline), a public transport ticketing app.[12]

Services

Ola offers different levels of service, ranging from economic to luxury travel.[13] The cabs are reserved through a mobile app and also through their website and the service accepts both cash and cashless payments with Ola money.[14] It claims to clock an average of more than 150,000 bookings per day and commands 60% of the market share in India.[15]

Criticism

Technology

OlaCabs' technology came under criticism regarding the security of its mobile app. The API calls could be replayed to top up its wallet.[16]

In August 2016, a privacy breach occurred when customers' details such as names, phone numbers and addresses, in Bangalore, were received as SMS messages by an individual in Chennai. Although these unanticipated messages were reported to Ola, the company ignored them, even under the threat of being reported to the TRAI.[17] The issue was reportedly fixed three weeks later after receiving considerable media coverage and social media attention.[18]

Overcharging and transparency in charging

The refund policy of OlaCabs has been criticised because of charging errors caused by technical glitches in their system.[19]

Concerns of drivers

Ola from January 2017 has been highly criticised for continuously dropping the driver incentives which in turn is affecting driver-partner's monthly income. Most nowadays fail to cope up with their monthly EMIs and other dues. Daily income of cab drivers is now equal to auto drivers running in the city after deducting all dues.[20]

Charges comprise:

  • Base fare (fixed amount)
  • Distance fare (charged per kilometre)
  • Ride time fare (charged per time taken to travel)
  • Peak pricing (direct ratio depending on demand for cabs)[21]
  • GST (5%)
  • Toll charges (toll collection if crossing a toll junction)

Driver credibility

Panic button for passengers in an Ola car in Kolkata

Delhi Transport authority in early 2015 questioned the credibility and required verification of drivers working for Ola, along with other competitors such as Uber. The inquiry revealed that approximately 80% of drivers amongst all services did not possess permits to ply commercial transport services in Delhi.[22] Drivers also protested[23] outside the Kukatapally, Hyderabad branch office of Ola, demanding more transparency over payments.

Culture

Various reasons apart from gender diversity issues have caused a lot of attrition at Ola, called "Ola's culture problem".[24]

References

  1. ↑ Technologies, Olacabs - ANI. "About us - Car rental - car hire - taxi India - olacabs.com". www.olacabs.com.
  2. ↑ "Ola losses tripled to Rs2,313 crore during 2015-16 on discounts, driver incentives". Mint. 23 June 2017. Retrieved 27 June 2017.
  3. ↑ Sugden, Joanna (2017-09-15). "Ola valuation falls to $3 billion after raising funds from SoftBank". Live Mint. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2018-01-04.
  4. ↑ "This Indian "unicorn" startup just raised $226 million". Fortune. 2015-09-16. Retrieved 2016-04-28.
  5. ↑ "Now Book Auto Rickshaws in Bangalore via Ola Cabs". NDTV Gadgets. 20 November 2014.
  6. ↑ Shankar, Shashwati; Chanchani, Madhav (1 May 2017). "Ola's revenue surges seven-fold, but loss widens to Rs 2,313.66 crore in FY16" – via The Economic Times.
  7. ↑ "India's Ola forays into New Zealand in latest overseas push". Reuters. Retrieved 18 September 2018.
  8. ↑ Shrivastava, Aditi (29 January 2015). "Olacabs to buy TaxiForSure to take on competitors like Uber; deal likely at Rs 1,250 crore". The Economic Times.
  9. ↑ Mandal, Suchayan (25 June 2015). "Ola cabs app and Taxi For Sure get into a relationship. Twitter trolls prove how complex it is". Business Insider India.
  10. ↑ Russell, Jon (17 August 2016). "Ola confirms it has shut down TaxiForSure, the rival it acquired for $200M". TechCrunch.
  11. ↑ Russell, Jon (18 December 2017). "Uber rival Ola buys Foodpanda India to get into food deliveries". TechCrunch. Oath Inc. Retrieved 20 December 2017.
  12. ↑ Chaudhary, Suman (3 April 2018). "Ola Acquires Mumbai-based Public Transport Ticketing App Ridlr". IndianWeb2. IndianWeb2.com. Retrieved 3 April 2018.
  13. ↑ "Ola aims to counter Uber with its Biz-class service". The Economic Times. 2 September 2014.
  14. ↑ "Pay gas and electricity bills with Ola Money". FactorDaily. 2016-11-28. Retrieved 2017-05-05.
  15. ↑ Abudheen, Sainul K (19 November 2014). "Ola now has $250-300M annual gross transaction run rate; peek at its numbers - VCCircle". VCCircle.com.
  16. ↑ Aggarwal, Varun; Murali, Malavika (20 March 2015). "Taxi aggregator Ola hit by tech glitches that allow free rides". The Economic Times.
  17. ↑ Anand, Kunal (30 August 2015). "Ola Cabs Accidentally Reveals Customer Data To Chennai Girl, And Doesn't Care". Indiatimes.com.
  18. ↑ "Ola leaked its customers data, claims user; company blames manual error". The Indian Express. 1 September 2015.
  19. ↑ "Decoding OLA Cabs Billing Issues – Ola ka Gola!". Trak.in. 13 May 2015.
  20. ↑ "Ola, Uber cut driver pay by a third in 1 year". economictimes.com. 18 September 2017.
  21. ↑ "4: Peak Pricing [Direct Ratio depending on demand for cabs]".
  22. ↑ "80% of Uber, Ola does not have permits to ply in Delhi, says minister". The Indian Express. 19 June 2015.
  23. ↑ Reddy (30 December 2016). "Cab Drivers Attack Ola Office in Kukatpally". Newshub. Retrieved 6 May 2018.
  24. ↑ "Ola's culture problem". FactorDaily. 2017-02-17. Retrieved 2017-05-05.
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