Ola revenue soars 70% to ₹1,286 crore in 2016-17
BENGALURU: India’s largest cabhailing service Ola reported a 70% jump in revenue during the year ended March 2017, according to latest regulatory filings.
Ola posted a revenue of ₹1,286 crore in the 2016-17 financial year, compared with ₹758.23 crore in the year-ago period, according to filings with the ministry of corporate affairs.
Ola, which is run by ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd, did not immediately disclose its profit or loss figures, but in the 2015-16 financial year, the cab-hailing start-up had generated losses of roughly ₹2,313 crore. Cab-hailing services such as Ola and Uber Technologies generate revenues from the commission that they charge drivers.
The latest numbers indicate that Ola has managed to hold its own against Uber in India over the past 18-24 months, after a brief period when it lost market share to the US-based cab-hailing giant.
Ola is currently locked in a bruising market share battle with Uber, which has expanded rapidly in India since it launched its service in the country nearly five years ago. Both companies count Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp. as a common investor.
Uber claims it is bigger than Ola, but Ola has claimed that Uber is less than half its size.
There is no conclusive way of ascertaining either claim, although company executives at both firms have indicated that Ola still remains the market leader in India.
Ola, which is among India’s most well-funded start-ups, raised $1.1 billion in fresh funding from China’s Tencent Holdings Ltd and existing investor SoftBank Group Corp. of Japan in October last year, giving it enough ammunition to keep arch-rival Uber at bay. Ola is currently in talks with new and existing investors to raise at least another $1 billion.
For Ola to keep Uber at bay and to continue with its ambitious plans to expand and launch in countries outside India, it will need to continue raising massive amounts of capital over the next few years.