Trueinsights: Ola is Twice as Large as Uber in India

Truecaller analysed around 2.5 billion calls made between consumers and service providers to understand the penetration of cab services in the country. Analysis of data between Jan 01, 2016 and April 17, 2016 reveals that Ola is twice as large as Uber.

The data shows that 102 million calls were made between Ola and its users compared to 39 million calls for Uber. The distribution of calls between Ola and Uber stands at 72% and 28% respectively.

With a population of 1.25 billion citizens, India offers various modes of public transportation. You cannot miss the legendary black-and-yellow cabs (kaali peeli), and commuters calling out loud to book their cab while ‘on the move’ on road.

According to Trueinsights revealed data, of the 684 million phone users in India, 205 million smartphone users are now changing the way cabs are the booked while ‘on the move’ in India.

The widely used method of getting a cab on the street, or calling a local cab vendor still accounts for majority of the revenue in the taxi industry (valued at USD 9 billion/INR 59,720 crores).

From January 1st to April 17th, Indian smartphone owners made and received 2.49 billion calls to some sort of cab or car service.

True insights

When it comes to call traffic for the new wave of ride-sharing, app-based services like Ola Cabs and Uber were the undisputed leaders by numbers of calls.

Ola Cabs made a whopping 42.5 million calls to its users, while 59.5 million calls were made by users – which accounted for 102 million calls between Ola Cabs and its users. Uber users received 13.6 million calls from the company, and called the company 25.4 million times – which totaled 39 million calls.

But, these new app-based services are still just a drop in the bigger ocean that is the Indian taxi industry. Even if the market keeps growing at anywhere near the pace it currently is, then there is abundant room for more than one service to operate.