Ola Integrates Its Mobility Offerings With 8 Mn Indus OS Users

Indus OS, the homegrown smartphone operating system, and India’s second largest OS has partnered with cab aggregator Ola. The partnership aims to power the mobility needs of the 8 Mn Indus OS user base.

Ola’s services will be integrated at the operating system level, enabling new users to discover its benefits and existing users to increase engagement. With this partnership, Ola becomes the first mobility provider for all Indus OS users, as shared in a company statement.

This integration will also make the Ola experience available in English and 12 other regional languages – Malayalam, Telugu, Tamil, Oriya, Assamese, Punjabi, Kannada, Gujarati, Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Marathi -catering to ~95% of the Indian population and enabling access to hassle-free commute for millions across India. Also, Indus OS is favored by most regional language smartphone users across India, making it an ideal partner for Ola.

Nitin Gupta, VP, Engineering at Ola said, “Mobility is for everyone, irrespective of language and location. The growth story of Ola is thus, based on unique innovations, built to cater to unique needs and challenges of India and Indians. This partnership with Indus OS is a big step in catering to such use cases and ensuring that access to reliable mobility solutions reaches everyone who needs it in the most contextual and intuitive experience. By associating with like-minded companies such as Indus OS that understand the market like we do, we are confident that customers will stand to benefit the most.”

How Will Ola Integration With Indus OS Drive Mobility For Users?

Ola has integrated with Indus OS through the inbuilt intuitive messaging app of the OS, which makes access to Ola not only seamless but also invokes suggestions based on the context of the message.

This is the default SMS application on the OS with IP capability. Used by 8 million Indians on smartphones such as Micromax, Intex Technologies, Karbonn Mobiles, Celkon among others, Indus OS is one of the leading operating system in India.

Indus OS users need to simply open their OS inbuilt messaging app and click on Ola among the suggested Brand Accounts to book a cab. The messaging app will identify user location and open maps to enter the drop location. Basis the choice a user makes, it will ask for confirmation, and send you the ride information – all in the same window.

Speaking on this partnership, Rakesh Deshmukh, founder, and CEO, Indus OS, said, “ Ola being the largest mobility platform in the country, with maximum availability across categories, this partnership will be a true value for our users. We understand the real needs of the Indian masses and believe in ground-up innovation to solve for those needs. Ola’s integration within Indus OS will allow users to access Ola’s services with minimal data and battery consumption and in the language of their choice. While we cater to the Indian users through simple and innovative technology, mutually beneficial tie-ups like these make our service offering more meaningful.”

Ola And Indus OS: Current Status, Vision And More

Ola is known in the industry for innovations such as Offline Booking, the Progressive Web App, Ola Share, and many other. Ola is committed to its mission of building mobility for a billion people. Using the Ola mobile app, users across 110 cities can book from over 700,000 vehicles across cabs, auto-rickshaw and taxis.

Ola’s partner app is already available in eight Indian languages, apart from English. The association with Indus OS will now help Ola cater to consumer interest as well by provide instant access to an underserved market in the most contextual and intuitive way possible.

On the other hand, Indus OS is working towards its mission to digitally connect 1 Bn people in the emerging markets with a smartphone ecosystem of their choice. Indus OS also has its very own app marketplace called App Bazaar with over 50,000 applications available in 12 regional languages and English. The company has a team of over 100 employees, with over 80% of the team dedicated towards technology & R&D.

Indus OS has received Series A funding from Omidyar Network, VenturEast and JSW Ventures, and is angel funded by Hari Padmanabhan, Mayank Singhal from Temasek Holdings, Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal from Snapdeal, Amit Gupta and Naveen Tiwari from Inmobi and Pranay Chulet from Quikr.

In long run, this partnership will significantly expand the user base for both Ola and Indus OS with the availability of prompt mobility solutions.