Global ride-hailing firm Uber is taking on Ola and other homegrown cab-aggregators in a battle to dominate the ride-sharing market in India.
The San Francisco, California-based firm, is betting big on technology and forming alliances with banks to tap the market here.
“We will continue to invest in technology and innovation to help ensure a safe, reliable trip from beginning to end,” said Pradeep Parameswaran, head of central operations, Uber India.
On Thursday, Uber unveiled several rider and driver-focused safety initiatives as part of its UberSAFE campaign. One such initiative is to check and de-duplicate driver-partner accounts on its platform. This is a step forward in the company’s efforts to ensure the right person is behind the wheel and riders have a safe and reliable experience. This is in addition to a comprehensive on-boarding process, background checks and initiatives like “real time ID check” for drivers where they take selfies to ensure identity.
“We want to guarantee the emotional and physical well-being of the rider, the driver and the vehicles on the road and that is what we are going after,” said Apurva Dalal, head of engineering, Uber India. He said safety features in the driver’s app can predict, prevent and reduce the number of crashes in India. The app is powered by telematics, a technology that collects and analyses driver behaviour. It monitors patterns, for example when drivers brake harshly or are driving too fast, by tracking the sensors in their smartphones. “What if the phone is turned off, we can actually install sensors in the car that passes all these signals,” said Mr. Dalal. The company also unveiled ‘Share Trip’ feature for drivers, which will allow them to share the details of trip, including route and estimated time of arrival, in real time with family or friends.
‘Priority market’
Uber, which picked Expedia’s Dara Khosrowshahi to be its new chief executive, considers India as a priority market. The firm had completed 500 million rides in India within less than four years of operations in the country. Uber said it also had unveiled the country’s first ride-sharing insurance programme in partnership with ICICI Lombard General Insurance. The policy provides driver partners free coverage for accidental death and disablement, hospitalisation, and outpatient medical treatment in case of an accident while online on the Uber App.
Following in the footsteps of its rival Ola, the company this month announced a comprehensive Unified Payments Interface (UPI) integration. It did this in partnership with National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and banking partners Axis Bank and HDFC Bank.
Local Guerillas
Bhavish Aggarwal, the chief executive of homegrown cab-aggregator Ola on Tuesday had compared the competition with its rival Uber to that of Vietnam war, where Uber was the U.S military fighting with local guerillas. An alumnus of IIT-Bombay, Mr. Aggarwal who co-founded Ola in 2010 had said that Uber is strong in technology and do things well in the Western world. “But as a local entrepreneur our strength is our knowledge of our country,” he said.
Globally, the ride-hailing market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 19.81% from 2017, to reach a market size of $276 billion by 2025, according to a report by research firm MarketsandMarkets. It says the market is primarily driven by rising urbanization and declining car ownership.
