Ola Mulls The ONDC Route To Capture A Bigger Chunk Of The Ride-Hailing Market

Ride-hailing giant Ola is reportedly planning to jump on the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) bandwagon. 

As per Medianama, Ola’s chief executive officer (CEO) Bhavish Aggarwal, while addressing the India Internet Day event held on August 24 in Bengaluru, said that the company was planning to join the state-backed network. He, however, did not divulge any details.

Inc42 has reached out to the company for a comment on the matter, and the story will be updated accordingly.

The development comes five months after ONDC forayed into the mobility space to enable smaller local players to compete with behemoths such as Uber and Ola. With this, Ola could be looking to tap into the growing ONDC ecosystem, which counts Namma Yatri, the Juspay and Beckn Foundation-backed ride hailing app for autos, as the sole mobility player on its platform. 

While Namma Yatri currently offers services only in Bengaluru, Ola could be looking at a pan-India offering on ONDC, with its eyes set on getting the first-mover advantage. As and when Ola debuts on ONDC, the drivers of Ola may benefit from the high discoverability aspect of the network.

Simply put, the state-backed initiative will allow participating platforms (in this case mobility players) to broadcast their services across all apps on the network. As a result, a user looking for rides will simply be able to compare prices from both Namma Yatri and Ola and choose accordingly. 

As adoption grows and more and more players join the network, users could see more competitive pricing as companies undercut each other for a bigger pie of the ride-hailing market. This could pose a threat to the duopoly of Ola, which it enjoys with Uber in the ride-hailing space. 

On the other hand, Namma Yatri has so far banked on the zero commission model for drivers to drive adoption but the platform will begin charging drivers beginning September 1. 

Besides, buyer apps such as Paytm, Pincode and Spice Money may also potentially hold the key and emerge as an avenue for users to book rides on ONDC. Paytm, too, has plans to roll out support for booking rides, while other players may also follow suit. 

At a time when the ride-hailing giant is struggling with several issues, including increasing losses, customer complaints about its subpar services and growing competition from new and existing players, the move to list on ONDC may bode well for Ola.

This comes days after ONDC CEO T Koshy said that the platform is merely ‘creating sparks’ right now, adding that an ‘explosion’ would happen when the platform gathers volume. 

Brainchild of the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), the network aims to ramp up ecommerce penetration to 25% in the next two years. At stake is the growing ecommerce opportunity, which is projected to reach $400 Bn by 2030. 

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