Ola Enters Three New Cities in Australia
Following successful launches in Perth, Sydney and Melbourne, India’s largest cab-hailing firm Ola (ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd) is now available in Brisbane, Gold Coast and Canberra.
Over the coming months, the company also plans to expand further in Australia in cities including Adelaide, Darwin and Hobart.
Now operating across 6 major metropolitan cities, Ola continues to receive feedback from customers to understand their needs and enhance their rideshare experience. This includes regular updates to the Ola app to improve customer experience, lower estimated time of arrival (ETA), strengthening the local support team and providing new promotions.
In January, the SoftBank-backed company had announced its plans to foray into the Australian market. The service has received a strong response from driver-partners with over 30,000 driver-partners registered Australia-wide. Ola welcomes driver-partners to sign up and reap the benefits of a market low 7.5% introductory commission rate and daily payments.
Ola will continue to build trust with its driver-partners by offering higher earnings and a range of initiatives including Community Town Halls, the first of which took place in Perth in April, attended by over 100 driver-partners. The next event is scheduled for Sydney in the coming weeks, with similar events to be planned for all cities as part of Ola’s commitment to having a driver-partner focussed approach to ride-sharing.
Chandra Nath, Vice President, Head of International, Ola said, “As we continue to expand across Australia, we have seen that customers and driver-partners are choosing Ola over competitors for the best rideshare experience possible. By doing so, everyone is choosing an affordable and better way to move.”
Ola's main competitor in the Australian market is Uber which is the world’s largest and most well-funded cab-hailing service. Interestingly, both are backed by common and largest investor, SoftBank.
Uber launched its operations in Australia in 2012 and operates in a number of cities including Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Canberra.
Ola and Uber are not only competing in ride-sharing space in India but also in food delivery segment. In December 2017, Ola acquired Foodpanda's India business for $31.7M and US-based Uber runs on-demand food delivery app UberEATs in select Indian cities.
Not only Uber, other players who also operate in Australian cab aggregator market are such as GoCatch and Taxify. Till date, GoCatch has raised $11 million, while Taxify has raised $2 million.
