Last year, the ride-hailing company, Uber, commanded about 14 million rides, making it the top ride-hailing firm with the best record last year. The firm published a report during its quarterly earnings publication on Thursday, as it commanded more than 50% of the ride-hailing market in India last year. Uber was the leader in the category, surpassing the hailing statistics of other companies in the region by a fair margin.
The publication also announced the company’s internal estimates for the claim. A spokesman of the company affirmed that in 2018, Uber facilitated about 11 million rides in India, which also topped the rankings for the best ride-hailing companies in India that year.
This report seems interesting as the two major competitors in the Indian market, Ola and Uber, have been keeping this information about the number of rides they handle in India within themselves. Ola as the local giant when it comes to hail riding is the closest rival to Uber in the region.
In a blog post by Ola in 2018, it stated that the company facilitated more than 2 million rides daily in 2018. However, the spokesperson who made this statement declined to comment about the current ride-hailing figure by the company. He issued a statement, indicating that Ola is the biggest ride-hailing company in India. It’s also important to note that SoftBank is an investor with both Ola and Uber.
Ola covers more than 250 cities and towns in India
The spokesperson continued that since Ola is the biggest mobility company in India, it offers ride-hailing services to more than 200 million people through a large network of over 2 million driver-partners. Its services include four, three, and two-wheelers hail riding services to its teeming customers. He further said that the company provides its services to over 250 cities and towns in India.
Just last month, local rival Zomato bought Uber’s Uber Eats’ food delivery service for about $180 million. According to some industry experts, the move is a nice strategy as it could help Uber concentrate on its core ride-hailing service to provide better service in India.
According to Uber’s spokesman, the company is planning to expand its service coverage to 200 cities from the current 50 cities it covers. Uber plans to concentrate on providing three-wheeler and two-wheeler services in those cities. While Uber is trying to expand its coverage and services in India, it’s local rival is also going global by starting operations in London from Tomorrow. The company said everything is put in place to roll out its ride-hailing services from February 10.
