In a constant bid to be one step ahead of its arch-nemesis Uber, Ola has plans to make two changes. The first is expanding Ola Play, which is a content platform to enhance your travel experience, and the second is to expand on the number of electric cars it is using in its fleet. This information comes from three sources who are in on the plans.
Ola first launched the Ola Play platform in a few Prime cabs in Delhi, Bengaluru, and Mumbai last November. It later added the platform to all prime cabs in these three cities. This content platform offers music, shopping apps, movies and other video content to customers and also lets them control air-conditioning from a tablet situated near them.
Ola hopes to encourage customers to be drawn to their ride-hailing service over Uber as a result of this feature. It has been observed that the deciding factor when picking a cab is surely the prices. According to sources, the company will slowly start charging customers more for using Play. The company intends to generate higher revenue by allowing ads to be served on the platform.
Another change that Ola is making to its plan is to include electric vehicles in its existing fleet. So far, the plan is to bring in electric cabs and autos to at least eight cities by March 2018. Once this is done, the company will consider adding electric bikes as well. According to the sources, these initiatives will receive funding from Softbank Group Corp., the Indian government, car and bike makers, and Ola itself.
Just last week, the company introduced its multi-modal pilot project in Nagpur with 100 e-taxis and e-autos with help from Mahindra Group, Tata Motors Ltd, Kinetic Engineering Ltd and TVS Motor Company.
In a statement to reporters, CEO Bhavesh Aggarwal has said that following the Rs. 50 crore investment in the Nagpur fleet, the company plans to invest $2 billion more to run 1 million electric cars by 2020 in India.
Along with its fleet, Ola also plans to invest in charging stations in bigger cities like Delhi and Bengaluru so cars can be charged on the go.
It is important for the company to successfully launch these initiatives to fulfill its goal of having a different customer base from Uber. Both these companies are now in an expensive market share war with Uber currently being the world’s biggest as well as richest startup. While both companies have differing opinions on who is leading the market, research firms indicate that the competition is currently very close.
Ola Play is a bid to change the way customers consume technology. Instead of reading or watching content on their phones, they should be willing to do the same on a tablet with fast Internet speed, premium content and high-definition delivery. Bear in mind that this feature will cause an increase in prices.
Additionally, the company’s plan to attract advertisers could be hard as this is a tough thing to do especially in India, as has been discovered by several companies before.
One of the sources stated on condition of anonymity,
Ola needs to have something different from Uber. Play and Electric are very ambitious projects and unlikely to become big very fast but they are attempts to do that
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