10,000 London Cabs Join Ola In 21 Days, Ola Charging Zero Commission From Drivers; Beats Uber In India

About 2 months back we covered a story, wherein we brought out to you that the Indian ride-sharing app Ola has emerged to the list of the top five most downloaded apps worldwide, in the month of October.

Ola Cabs, founded by Bhavish Agarwal in 2010 emerged to find itself as the fourth most downloaded ride-sharing app worldwide and third most downloaded app on Android, for October 2019. Its biggest rival, Uber was awarded as the most downloaded ride-sharing & taxi app worldwide for October 2019.

The tables have appeared to turn around this time. It has been found out that Ola has registered more than 10,000 private hire vehicle (PHV) drivers on its platform in London, in just three weeks. All this has occurred just 24 hours after Uber reported losing its London licence.

Ola Registers More than 10k Vehicles in London in Just 3 Weeks

The ride -hailing company Ola forayed into the UK market in August 2018, competing with Uber, Kapten, Bolt etc. and is currently present in eight cities in the UK, including Cardiff, Birmingham, Liverpool, Bristol, including others.

Given this fact, Ola started registering licensed drivers last month in London for its launch in coming weeks and has registered more than 10,000 private hire vehicle (PHV) drivers on its platform in three weeks.

It announced onboarding drivers last month, after Uber lost its London licence, when the Transport for London (TFL) authority found over 14,000 Uber trips were driven by drivers that had faked their identity on Uber app.

Ola said that it wouldn’t be charging commission from the earnings of drivers for the first two months after the launch in a “first of its kind” offer. In fact, the company onboarded  a large number of these drivers’ registrations through referrals and word of mouth amongst drivers, reiterating their trust on the platform.

The company claimed around 3 million rides with more than 11,000 Ola drivers excluding London since last year.

Ola Climbs Above Uber as Most Downloaded App in India

Ola Cabs, founded by Bhavish Agarwal in 2010, has emerged to find itself as the largest player by monthly active users (MAUs) and also has a significant lead ahead of Uber for downloads.

Ola’s MAUs climbed up to 23.96 million in Nov 2019 from around 27 million MAUs in December 2018, while Uber recorded around 15 million MAUs in December last year and 13.13 million last month.  With respect to downloads, the monthly figure stood at 67.41 million for Ola while for Uber it was 45.73 million.

Ola in the UK Market

After its arch-rival Uber was stripped of its licence in London almost recently, Ola has stressed on ensuring its drivers are regulated with respect to verification of documents, criminal records check, disclosure and barring service (DBS) training and medical examination amongst other requirements.

Due to Uber’s licence ban, about 50,000 of its drivers have been hit with a blow. Its a good thing that this blow has likely given Ola to capture these 50,000 drivers.

Importantly, Ola cab driver app in the UK has been downloaded 36,000 times till November 2019 even as there are 6,500 monthly active users last month from around zero in March this year.

It has been overtaken by Kapten and Bolt in terms of monthly active users. While Bolt’s November MAUs stood at a little over 1.5 lakh, Kapten’s MAUs were at 1 lakh while for Ola it was under 1 lakh by a fraction. 

In terms of downloads, Ola recorded over 4.57 lakh downloads and is currently lagging behind Kapten, which has 5.14 lakh downloads, while Bolt has 7.72 lakh downloads till November.