Ola losses narrow to Rs 2,842 cr for FY18; revenue zooms 61%

Ride hailing platform Ola has more than halved its consolidated losses to Rs 2,842.2 crore, while growing revenue by almost 61 per cent during FY2018, as per regulatory documents.

Ola, which is locked in a bruising battle for market leadership in the Indian market against American rival Uber, had registered a loss of Rs 4,897.8 crore in FY2016-17.

ANI Technologies -- the entity running Ola -- saw its consolidated revenue rising 60.9 per cent to Rs 2,222.6 crore in the fiscal ended March 2018 from Rs 1,380.7 crore in the previous fiscal.

Emails sent to Ola did not elicit any response.

According to the documents filed with the Corporate Affairs Ministry, Ola narrowed its standalone losses significantly to Rs 2,676.7 crore, while revenues were up 44.6 per cent to Rs 1,860.6 crore in FY2018 compared to the previous financial year.

Ola has previously stated that it is on path to profitability. Founded in 2011 by Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati, Ola offers services in more than 110 cities and claims to have over 10 lakh driver-partners across cabs, auto-rickshaws, and taxis on its platform.

In 2018, Ola forayed into international markets like Australia, the UK and New Zealand. It competes with Uber in these markets as well.

Rival Uber too, has seen its revenue growing manifold from India business to Rs 21.5 crore in the fiscal ended March 2018. Its net profit also grew to Rs 19.6 lakh in 2017-18, compared with Rs 3.22 lakh in 2016-17.

Interestingly, the two rivals -- which count SoftBank as a common investor -- also compete in the food delivery space in India. Ola operates Foodpanda that competes with UberEATS in the Indian market.