Top 10 Mobility Companies in India 2022
Mobility is a user-centric concept that recognises the need for transportation products and services to respond to consumer demands, habits, and preferences. New mobility trends such as ride-hailing, car-sharing, and subscription services transform how people use, value, and relate to their vehicles. These new mobility services contribute to a movement in consumer preferences away from vehicle ownership and toward “vehicle users,” which entails experimenting with new business models that do not require the user to own a car and incur all of the costs associated with it.
Mobility services are part of a gradual shift in travel patterns. New mobility solutions are undeniably a driver for innovation in the automobile sector, driving manufacturers to experiment with new business models and revenue streams by building their mobility solutions. Car dealerships will adjust and preserve their market position as fully integrated transportation providers due to this gradual transformation. But, in practise, how does that look?
It’s possible that your loaner fleet will be able to get higher mileage. Alternatively, they could be extracting additional value from repossessed vehicles. Car subscription services range from simple to complex, and they are offered in addition to the traditional selling, leasing, and servicing of new and used vehicles. To expand their revenue streams and meet increased consumer demand for flexibility and convenience in transportation, smart dealers are looking at mobility solutions.
Ready or Not, Mobility Is Transforming the Automotive Industry:
History has shown that if a better system is developed and proven successful, people will adopt it. It’s possible that taxicab companies were considering a more effective way to dispatch their vehicles. However, by squandering this opportunity, a third-party – the Silicon Valley-backed Uber – was able to disrupt the ride-hailing industry by introducing simplicity, convenience, and cutting-edge software to the market.
Dealers can restructure the automotive company before a third party obtains a foothold and pushes them to the sidelines, thanks to the growing demand for integrated transportation providers. More than a threat, the mainstreaming of new mobility services is an opportunity for dealers.
As mobility preferences evolve, the automotive industry seeks to demonstrate to customers that it understands the move to on-demand and alternative consumer transportation demands and has relevant new products and services. Dealers are actively rethinking and exploring new business models in response to the growing spread and adoption of new mobility services.
The Mobility Wave is also sweeping through smaller cities and towns:
The proliferation of new mobility services has a massive impact on how society and individuals view transportation, their expectations, and how transportation is structured and paid for. This transformation is already taking place.
It isn’t simply in densely populated coastal locations. Well-known ride-hailing services are gaining traction in small towns and even rural areas. While ride-hailing services are now less common in rural regions, they represent a significant step toward reducing America’s reliance on automobiles. Technology infrastructure, including reliable cell service, is one of the biggest obstacles in rural areas, but this will not always be the case. When it comes to reaching smaller communities, the expansion of cellular and broadband technology may have the greatest influence. In the meantime, rural-friendly ride-hailing services have sprung up to fill the need. So, if you assume mobility services won’t have an impact on your future business outside of the city bounds, think again.
Technology Enables Automotive Mobility:
We’ve been hearing about a digital disruption on the horizon for a few years now. It is, in fact, already here. We’ve arrived at a point when rising consumer expectations and technical advancements collide. Customers have more options than ever before as disruptive companies use innovations in cloud, mobile, social, and artificial intelligence technology to create personalised, useful, and immediate experiences. As a result, people come to anticipate this level of service from each company with whom they interact. They need connected procedures like smooth hand-offs and contextualised engagements based on previous contacts to gain their business. Remember that technology is only a tool; it isn’t the final solution.
Shared mobility has exploded in popularity in recent years. Sharing transportation or mobility refers to the act of sharing a vehicle with a group of individuals at the same time.
Car-sharing, bicycle-sharing systems, ride-sharing firms, carpools, and micro trans all fall under the umbrella of shared mobility.
This trend of shared mobility is beneficial in a variety of ways. Pollution control is required, and this sharing trend can potentially rescue us in a variety of ways. Many Indian corporations have invested in sharing vehicles as the market for them grows.
Here’s a compiled list of India’s top ten shared mobility companies:
1. Ola
Ola Cabs is a transnational Indian ride-sharing company located in Bengaluru, India. Financial services, cloud kitchens, and a used-car marketplace are other business sectors.
Several venture capitalists, including Softbank, own the company. It has expanded into its first overseas market, Australia, in January 2018 and launched in New Zealand in September 2018. Ola commenced operating in the United Kingdom in March of this year.
It has a fleet of automobiles and is expanding its services to include auto-rickshaws, bikes, and other modes of transportation. Ola, one of India’s most popular shared mobility firms, connects clients to drivers and various vehicles, including motorcycles, auto-rickshaws, metered taxis, and cabs, providing convenience and transparency for hundreds of millions of customers and over 1.5 million driver-partners.
The Ola app is the safest and easiest ride, with many travel options and well-protected transportation. Ola is India’s most popular ride-hailing service, with over 3 million vehicles in over 100 cities, including Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, and Pune.
2. Uber
Uber Technologies, Inc., or Uber, is an American mobility-as-a-service company established in San Francisco that operates in over 900 cities worldwide. Ride-hailing, food delivery, package delivery, couriers, freight transportation, electric bicycle and motorised scooter rental (through a collaboration with Lime), and ferry transportation (via a relationship with local operators) are among its services. Uber does not own any vehicles and earns a 25% commission on each booking. Fares are stated in advance to the consumer, but they change depending on the local supply and demand at the time of the booking.
It had 101 million monthly active users worldwide in the second quarter of 2021. Uber has a 68 per cent market share in ride-sharing and a 26 per cent market share in food delivery in the United States. Uber has become so well-known in the sharing economy that uberisation, or the commodification of service sectors through the use of computing platforms, has been coined, and other entrepreneurs have dubbed their products “Uber for X.”
Uber has been chastised, like other comparable companies, for treating its drivers as gig workers and independent contractors, disrupting taxicab operations, and increasing traffic congestion. The corporation has been chastised for several unethical actions and failing to follow local legislation.
3. BlaBlaCar
BlaBlaCar is a carpooling marketplace in France. Its website and smartphone apps bring together drivers and passengers who want to travel between locations and split costs. The company does not own any vehicles; instead, it acts as a broker, earning a commission (between 18 and 21 per cent) on each booking.
Belgium, Brazil, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Italy, Luxembourg, Mexico, The Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom are among the 22 countries that use the platform.
The service’s name comes from a rating system for drivers’ preferred level of chattiness in the car: “Bla” for not very chatty, “BlaBla” for someone who enjoys talking, and “BlaBlaBla” for those who can’t keep silent.
4. BluSmart Mobility
BluSmart is not just a firm that provides shared mobility, but it is also environmentally sustainable. India’s first all-electric shared innovative transportation platform is designed to provide efficient, economical, intelligent, and sustainable mobility. This company has established itself as one of India’s leading shared mobility companies.
BluSmart is India’s first and largest zero-emission ride-hailing service and platform to make mobility more innovative, safer, cleaner, and more sustainable in the future.
BluSmart is reimagining mobility to provide:
- A better client experience (zero ride denials, zero surge pricing, high-quality service, highest standards of safety and sanitisation)
- Improving the driver partners’ quality of life (flexible work hours, higher earnings and no stress of asset ownership)
- Rejuvenating India’s megacities’ air quality (full stack zero-emissions ride-hailing service)
Responsible mobility:
Impact: For a better future, BluSmart makes mobility smarter, greener, safer, and more sustainable. The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) produced a Case Study on BluSmart’s role in tackling climate change issues. BluSmart became the most popular mode of urban commuting transportation.
Innovation: “Systems and methods for distributing automobiles to ride requests” is the subject of a patent application.
Service: India’s first full-stack ride-hailing service focused on the user, with “Zero Ride Denials, Zero Surge Pricing, and Zero Emission Mobility.”
The ecosystem of Electric Vehicles: In Delhi, BluSmart boasts the largest all-electric ride-hailing fleet and the most fast charging facilities.
Opportunity in the market: By 2030, India’s ride-hailing sector will have grown from $20 billion to $90 billion throughout its megacities.
Customers can see the BluSmart driver’s body temperature while booking their BluSmart service: Customers can preorder a face mask while booking their BluSmart service. Customers can see the last time the car was sanitised on the BluSmart app, and BluSmart electric cars are sanitised after every ride.
Tailwinds: Lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO advantage of EVs over ICE), lowering battery costs, improving vehicle range on a single charge, and state and federal government policy support for EVs.
5. Meru Mobility
Meru Cabs is an Indian-based ride-hailing service. Neeraj Gupta launched the company in 2006, situated in Mumbai. This dates back to when Mumbai’s streets were dominated by black and yellow taxis. It is also known for being one of the first Indian companies to add electric vehicles to its fleet. An early investment hastened meru’s path from True North in 2006. Mahindra and Mahindra now own the bulk of the company, providing a wide range of mobility services to consumers and businesses throughout India. Meru currently provides people and business houses in 24 cities across India with app-based transportation services such as city rides, city rentals, airport transfers, and outstation travel, among other things.
It provides people and corporate houses in 24 cities across India with app-based transportation services, including city rides, city rentals, airport transfers, and outstation trips, among other things.
In the year 2000, Mr Neeraj Gupta started the V-Link Group. V-Link Fleet Solutions began as a staff transportation company, but it started to provide services to clients in the BPO industry as it grew. V-Link grew to a fleet of 1300 vehicles over four years.
The Maharashtra government requested tenders in August 2006 to operate a fleet of 10,000 taxis in Mumbai to replace the existing black-yellow cabs (Kaali-peeli taxis). During this time, V-Link teamed together with India Value Fund (IVF), a venture capital firm, to develop Meru. Meru was formed in Mumbai with an initial capital of INR 500 million, to provide AC cabs with electronic metres and GPS/GPRS system cabs via a phone booking system for the first time in India. Meru soon expanded its services to India’s top four cities, and by 2010, the company had a fleet of 5000 cabs.
By 2015, it has a fleet of 9000 taxis serving most of India’s metros, Tier-2, and Tier-3 cities, including Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Vadodara, Surat, Pune, and Kolkata. Meru has partnered with India’s five major airports to become their official airport cab service provider. Meru’s service offerings had expanded from city and airport transportation to city rentals and outstations by 2018. In Hyderabad, Meru has partnered with Mahindra Electric to provide transportation.
Meru Cabs was purchased by Mahindra & Mahindra in 2019 for a 55 per cent share. Meru extended its product offerings and introduced electric vehicles to its fleet due to the transaction. In Mumbai and Delhi, Meru performed a trial project with 200 electric cars. It expanded to become the second-largest ride-hailing service using electric vehicles in its fleet by 2020.
6. Zoomcar
Zoomcar is a self-drive car rental company based in Bangalore, India. The company was founded in 2013 by David Back and Greg Moran. Zoomcar has a presence in over 34 cities.
David Back and Greg Moran, an American couple, met at the University of Pennsylvania, where they both graduated in 2007. Back went on to Harvard Law School after graduation, while Moran worked on energy finance initiatives. Both Moran and Back went to business school, Moran at the University of Southern California and Back at Cambridge University’s Judge Business School.
Back and Moran dropped out of business school to launch a car rental business in India. Back resigned from the self-drive auto rental company in May 2015, claiming personal reasons for returning to the United States.
In February 2013, Zoom began operations in Bangalore, India, using the JustShareIt platform. Zoom started with a $215,000 investment and a seven-car fleet.
7. Rapido
Rapido is a Bangalore-based Indian bike taxi aggregator and logistics service, provider. The company, founded in 2015 and now operates in over 75 towns across the country, has run into legal issues in many locations.
Aravind Sanka, Pavan Guntupalli, and SR Rishikesh launched theKarrier in 2015 with two IIT alumni and PESU alumni. Rapido has over 15,000 registered riders, with an average ride of 30,000 per day, according to reports from September 2018. Hero MotoCorp chairman Pawan Munjal and former Google India executive Rajan Anandan are some of those who have invested in Rapido.
Aravind Sanka, a co-founder of Rapido, stated in 2019 that the company had produced more than 500,000 employment in India. The startup claims to have one crore registered users in November 2019.
Rapido extended its logistical operations after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, delivering hyperlocal delivery for local businesses and e-commerce corporations. Rapido introduced on-demand auto-rickshaw hailing services in 14 locations in October 2020.
The Rapido app allows users to book a ride, and a rider (dubbed “Captain”) will arrive at the specified place. The ticket comprises an introductory fare of $15 and a charge of $3 per kilometre travelled. The “Captains” must register using the Rapido-Captain app and provide the relevant documentation to be validated. Motorcycles, scooters, and e-bikes are permitted, although the vehicle must be newer than 2010.
8. Yulu
Yulu is a technology-driven urban mobility platform that enables seamless integration of public and private forms of transportation. It was established in 2017 and is based in Bengaluru, India. Yulu has 18,000 single-seater vehicles and 2.5 million consumers across Bengaluru, Delhi, Gurugram, Mumbai, Pune, and Bhubaneswar. As of February 2021, Yulu had raised $19.9 million in investment.
Amit Gupta, RK Misra, Hemant Gupta, and Naveen Dachuri established Yulu in 2017.
The company launched operations in Bangalore and Pune in January 2018, followed by Mumbai and Bhubaneswar before the end of the year. They expanded to New Delhi in September 2019 and to Ahmedabad in March 2020, covering six major cities in three years.
Yulu introduced its Miracle fleet of 2,000 electric vehicles in January 2019, followed by its Internet of Things (IoT) charging box, which enables a cost-effective battery-swapping network. Yulu enhanced the Miracle in November 2019 by adding a bag holder, shock absorbers, and a better footrest. Yulu will release 8,000 more Miracle e-vehicles with new features in April 2020. Due to the Coronavirus outbreak in April 2020, Yulu included a ‘Last-sanitised’ timestamp to their app to ensure maximum safety. Yulu added 24/7 chat assistance to their app in June 2020 to boost customer service.
Yulu has travelled 27 million kilometres, burned 4 million calories, and saved 2.3 million kg of carbon emissions as of November 2020.
Bounce and Vogo are Yulu’s key rivals. The distinction is that their scooters are real, gas-powered scooters that may be rented for long periods or used for short distances.
9. Ola Electric
Ola Electric Mobility is a Bangalore-based electric two-wheeler manufacturer in India. Krishnagiri, Tamil Nadu, is home to the company’s production plant.
It is worth $2.7 billion as of December 2021.
Ola Cabs’ parent company, ANI Technologies, founded Ola Electric in 2017 as a wholly-owned subsidiary. The company was started to reduce Ola’s cab fleet’s emission and fuel dependency and shift to mass electric mobility; In May 2017, Nagpur initiated a trial initiative that included installing charging stations throughout the city and buying electric cabs e-buses, and e-rickshaws from OEM partners. Ola Electric began delivering its S1 and S1 Pro models in Bengaluru and Chennai in December 2021, with 100 scooters delivered.
10. SmartE
SmartE is India’s first and largest electric transportation service, with tens of thousands of commuters using it daily. SmartE was founded in 2015 to provide an environmentally sustainable first and last-mile transportation option in urban areas. SmartE provides all-electric transportation that is shareable, inexpensive, and convenient.
SmartE uses cutting-edge technology and creative mobile technology platform solutions to give the most convenient, transparent, and cost-effective short-distance travel option.
It has offered over 30 million “zero-pollution” rides since its launch in October 2015. As a pioneer in the electric mobility service area, SmartE is committed to making India a 100% electric vehicle nation by 2030.
Edited and published by Ashlyn
