Rapido faces app outage as ride booking issue hit users

Rapido, one of India’s largest one-stop mobility platforms, faced a technical disruption on August 27, with users taking to X to report issues booking rides, selecting destinations, loading addresses, and accessing parts of the app.

Downtime Detector, a real-time tracking service that monitors the operational status and availability of websites, apps, and internet services in India, showed a spike in user complaints, including reports from Delhi, Telangana, Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Haryana. 

Complaints included location failures, login problems, and server errors. However, the service-status page simultaneously showed no cities with confirmed outages, meaning the data indicates widespread user problems but does not establish the geographic scale or technical cause of the disruption.

“Earlier today, some users experienced a brief technical issue while booking rides on the Rapido platform. Our internal teams identified and resolved the issue promptly, and all services have since been fully restored. We regret any inconvenience caused and thank our users for their continued trust and patience,” a Rapido spokesperson said when asked by YourStory for comment.

The incident comes as the mobility platform, which has been investing heavily in technology, supply and expansion, sees competition intensifying across India’s cities.

In May, the company announced $240 million in primary funding led by Prosus, as part of a larger $730 million primary and secondary financing that valued Rapido at $3 billion. The company said the fresh capital would be used to expand into high-growth markets, strengthen its captain network and invest in technology and platform efficiency.

That expansion is happening as rivals move deeper into the same markets. Uber announced in August that it was adding 100 Indian cities, taking its footprint to 225 cities, with Uber Bike leading the push into Tier-II and Tier-III markets. Uber said reliability and affordability would be important to retaining customers in these markets.

(This article has been updated with a statement from Rapido.)