Ola takes fight with Uber to UK
BENGALURU: Ola, India’s largest cab-hailing service, is taking its fight with Uber to overseas markets, while hotel aggregator Oyo is expanding rapidly in China, one of the world’s biggest hotel markets, underscoring rising confidence levels of Indian internet start-ups in their ambition to have a global footprint.
Less than a year after launching in Australia, Ola said it is now entering the UK. Oyo, meanwhile, said it has expanded to 1,000 hotels across 28 provinces in China. The key reason is the belief among the founders of these startups that their platforms can attract customers overseas while competing with bigger, international rivals. This has also allowed them to compete strongly with larger overseas rivals in India as well.
For instance, Ola has so far come out on top of Uber in a gruelling domestic battle for market share. Oyo has seen its business turn around thanks to efforts to gain full control of the room inventory on its platforms.
Ola’s co-founder, Bhavish Aggarwal, has been aggressively pushing executives at his startup to build out its international business rapidly, as he doubles down on what it is being seen as a potentially risky, expensive bet.
Similarly, other founders at startups such as Lenskart, Oyo and Byju’s have also backed the abilities of their respective platforms to come out on top in international markets.
What has also helped matters is that each of these startups is backed by deep-pocketed investors such as Japan’s Softbank.
Ola on Tuesday said it plans to enter the UK as it obtained licences to operate in South Wales and Greater Manchester. The company would launch operations in South Wales within the next month. “The UK is a fantastic place to do business and we look forward to providing a responsible, compelling, new service that can help the country meet its demanding mobility needs,” said Aggarwal, also the CEO of Ola. “We look forward to our continued engagement with policymakers and regulators as we expand across the country and build a company embedded in the UK.”
In May, Ola, run by ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd, expanded its presence in Australia by starting services in Brisbane, the Gold Coast and Canberra.