Ola launches Ola Mini in Delhi, after B’lore, plans to foray into 15 more cities by year end

OlaCabs launched its Ola Mini service in Delhi (NCR) today with a fleet over 250 cars and the number is expected to grow to 800 by the next year. The new service, which was launched in Bangalore earlier, will be offered with an introductory price of Rs.12 per km with a base price of Rs.150 for the first six kilometres, making it one of the cheapest AC cab services available in NCR.

“We’re excited to bring Ola Mini to Delhi and making reliable and convenient experience accessible to Delhiites. We think this is of great value to NCR given the distance in the region stretching across three states,” said Bhavish Aggarwal, co-founder and CEO, OlaCabs.

With Ola Mini, the Mumbai-based company claims to bring down the price-point by 33% when compared to its regular sedan service. Under the new category, Ola will offer AC compact cars like Tata Indica, Ford Figo and WagonR among others. Vicky Donor fame actor Yami Gautam was also present at the launch event.

So far the company has received an overwhelming response for Ola Mini in Bangalore. When asked about the competition in the cab aggregation space getting hot, Bhavish said, “We don’t think of ourselves in competition with any Indian or international companies like Uber. India has different dynamics and we understand the market here very well.”

Customers can book the cabs online by calling Ola’s call center or through the Ola mobile app. With Ola Mini, customers will also get the usual cutting-edge services like the ability to book and track the cab through their mobile phones, e-mailed receipts, accurate meter and well-trained professional drivers.

Talking about the future plans, Bhavish pointed out, “We are expanding OlaCabs to three more cities in the next two months. Besides this, we are planning to foray into 15 tier II and III cities by the end of the current year.

The Tiger Global and Matrix Partners funded venture has presence in six cities, including Mumbai, Delhi-NCR, Bangalore, Pune and Chennai. The company was founded in 2011 by two IIT-B alumni Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit B. At present, close to 25% of their overall bookings happen through mobile apps with average ticket size for its city taxi hovering around Rs.400.