Soon after launching its services in Australia, the cab-hailing major Ola is planning to foray into the United Kingdom (UK) market and has also received a license to operate in South Wales and Greater Manchester regions.
The company is planning to launch its operations in the UK within the next month and claims that it would be the only ride-hailing player there that can legally offer customers both private hire and black cabs on its platform. Furthermore, it would expand more in the UK by the end of this year.
“Ola is excited to announce its plans for the UK, one of the world’s most evolved transportation markets. The UK is a fantastic place to do business and we look forward to providing a responsible, compelling, new service that can help the country meet its ever demanding mobility needs,” said Bhavish Aggarwal, co-founder and CEO of Ola.
This development comes on the back of Ola’s aggressive overseas expansion plans. The Bengaluru-based ride-hailing firm entered the Australian market in February. In Australia, at present, it operates in 7 cities with over 40,000 registered drivers.
The company stated that they are moving closer to higher profitability as it started earning on each cab ride, after taking into account expenses such as driver incentives and customer discounts. Ola claims to work on 1 billion rides each year internationally, with more than 1 million driver partners and 125 million customers in over 110 cities.
Talking about Ola’s competitor, Uber is already operating in the UK market. It started operations in London in 2012. It seems that the homegrown ride-hailing service provider Ola is accelerating up to give a tougher fight to the ever emerging Uber.