Ola is seen as a potential threat to Uber Technologies Inc.’s dominance in the London ride-sharing market.
Ola, owned by ANI Technologies, has stated that it will take on Uber in London before the end of the year.
- According to Morgan Stanley analyst report, the re-entry of Bolt (Taxify) in the UK market after two years didn’t impact Uber’s performance.
- The reports suggests that a greater threat is likely to come from Ola.
- Uber’s share of app downloads fell a little after Bolt entered, but it has recovered.
- While Bolt has only raised around $190 million to $280 million in funding so far, Ola is said to have racked up to $3.8 billion.
Ola’s founder Bavish Agarwal is still struggling to bring in new and aligned investors as he doesn’t want to take more money from Softbank, which already has 26% stake in Ola.
Ola has slowed down its global expansion plan, after initial euphoria in the overseas market. It is looking to raise massive funds to the flavour of $2 billion for its global expansion plans.
It is not the first time that Ola will be slowing down its expansion. Earlier, its expansion plan in the subcontinent met with the same fate in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
With Ola’s entry in the London market, Uber is wary of losing a substantial rider share to the Indian aggregator. It might need to rack up on resources to challenge Ola’s aggressive expansion plan.
