The two largest ride hailing services in India that are Ola and Uber, are witnessing a sharp slowdown in the growth of rides over the past year. This is the result of their steer toward operational efficiencies, cut customer discounts and driver incentives, and expand into newer verticals such as food delivery. Though the absolute number of daily rides has increased, growth declined to 20% on average in 2018 to 3.5 million across all its segments.
“The market has dwindled owing to a higher base effect, as well as a plunge in supply and hike in fares,” said Jaspal Singh, founder of Valoriser Consultants, a transportation consulting firm.
In 2017, Uber claimed to achieved 9.4 million trips a week (1.3 million a day), which represented a 67% growth in a span of 11 months. In 2018, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi stated that Uber was showing 10 million trips a week or 1.4 million trips a day, representing just a 7.6% growth in the number of rides in nine months. Ola, however, did not disclose ride numbers publicly.