Ola Money Will Now Compete Against Paytm & Freecharge; Make My Trip Launches Branded Budget Rooms: Value+

Besides large consolidation in the Indian startup scene, we are also witnessing diversification in a big way. Two of the biggest digital startups from India has declared new launches, which can have a far reaching impact on the overall industry.

Ola Money vs Paytm & Freecharge

Digital mobile wallets segment has just received a new player: Ola Money. Ola has decided to launch their mobile payment service Ola Money as a standalone app, which will now directly compete against established player such as Paytm and Freecharge.

Ola Money, which is available on Google Playstore, can be now used to recharge your mobile, pay utility bills and even transfer money; thereby converting into a full fledged mobile wallet.

Rushil Goel, head of Ola Money said, “We are in an advanced stage of talks with leading players in segments such as travel and entertainment, where repeat usage is higher. We are live with about 50 merchants now and will continue to add more,” Apparently, more than 50% of all Ola’s transactions are happening via Ola Money, and as per Rushil, their customers have more average balance in their Ola wallets, compared with Paytm or Freechare.

Ola Money was launched last year, mainly to process their in-app payments and enabling cash-less transactions. They had informed that it will work in association with Zipcash wallet services, and was basically a closed-payemnt system. Later, they enabled cashless payments for other services such as OYO Rooms, Saavn, Lenskart, Zo Rooms and TinyOwl via Ola Money.

But now, as Ola Money has evolved into a separate mobile wallet, users can also get cash back from their partners such as Zoomin, Planhound, Amex, Zopper, MyBusTickets and more.

You can download Ola Money from Google Playstore here.

Besides providing taxi services, Ola is now also present in on-demand grocery services, online food delivery service and bus shuttle services.

It seems Ola has embraced diversification in a massive way.

MakeMyTrip Launches Value+

Make My Trip has decided to jump into the branded room bandwagon, with the launch of their own branded chain: Value+. This is indeed surprising, as few days back, they had blocked Oyo Rooms and Zo Rooms from their listings.

As per the industry trends, Value+ will offer rooms in the range of Rs 900 to Rs 2000 per night, which will place them in direct competition against StayZilla, Oyo Rooms, Zo Room and recently launched Yatra’s own branded rooms service.

In fact, Yatra, which has also launched their branded room service is offering a tariff as low as Rs 499 per night.

As per reports coming in, Make My Trip already has around 1000 rooms listed under Value+ brand, which will be doubled in the coming days. A standard Value+ room will be powered with air-conditioning, satellite TV, WiFi and free breakfast. Compared to new players, Make My Trip has an advantage – they have 27,500 hotels already listed under their platform; and all they need to do is now convert some of them into Value+. Comparably, Oyo has 3000 rooms under their platform, while Zo has only 1000.

With the entry of biggies such as Make My Trip and Yatra, the branded rooms segment in India has just become more exciting now.