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San Francisco based taxi service provider, Uber has expanded its wing in 7 new cities in India in a move to outbid its rival, Ola, in this highly competitive market. With this now it has services in 18 Indian cities.
The launches will take place today and target cities will be Bhubaneswar, Coimbatore, Indore, Mysore, Nagpur, Surat and Visakhapatnam. The move comes just a month after the company roped in Amit Jain to head its India operations to improve relations with regulators.
This expansion will make India Uber’s largest market outside the U.S. The company will offer only its low priced services Uber Go and UberX as in pricing will be vital to capture share and for growth in tier 2 cities.
Neeraj Singhal, head of expansion for India, said the demand they have witnessed in 3-4 of the new cities is more than what they saw when they launched in Bombay. Company’s data shows that people in these cities have been waiting for Uber to launch in their cities.
He further added that there has been a 40% month on month growth, which makes it easier for them to zero in on the targeted cities and expand accordingly. Uber is currently present in 11 cities and following this launch the count will be 18. However, rival Ola operates in 100 cities and has over 1,50,000 vehicles while Uber’s are estimated to be around 50,000.
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