Mahindra Electric banks on Uber, Ola, Zoomcar for its future growth

Facing stagnancy in passenger car sales of electric vehicles, Mahindra Electric is focussing on sales to fleet operators like Uber, Ola, Zoomcar and others, to drive growth in this segment. Mahesh Babu, the company's CEO said that in the last fiscal year, the company was able to sell more than 4,000 vehicles, of which passenger cars accounted for around 1,300 units. It accounted for around 0.5 per cent of the entire sales volume of Mahindra & Mahindra in the last fiscal year. 

While this year, riding on optimism over adoption of electric vehicles in many Indian states and formulation of favourable state government incentives, he expects sales volume to double. However, the growth will be led by commercial vehicles and sales to fleet operators. “The passenger car sales have been stagnant while sales of commercial vehicles have more than doubled and institutional sales have been good. Now, we will be focusing on sales to fleet operators which is expected to drive growth”, he said. Since the acquisition of Reva Electric Car Company from the Maini family in 2010, which marked its entry into the electric cars segment, Mahindra Electric has been able to sell 4,500 cars which are currently plying on the roads and has lined up Rs 6 billion investment to develop its electric car portfolio.

Ola, Uber drivers in major cities to go on an indefinite strike from today

The transport wing of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena has called for an indefinite strike of drivers of cab aggregators Uber and Ola starting Monday midnight.

Scores of commuters could be inconvenienced due to the indefinite strike starting from Monday.

The strike has been called by the Maharashtra Navnirman Vahtuk Sena which has claimed that several drivers are not being able to cover costs due to falling business.

Union leaders said that drivers in other cities like New Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune among others would also be participating in the strike

News digest: GST revenue collection, green number plate on e-cars, and more

Taxman plans to match GST invoices to plug revenue leakage

The GST Council may move the sales and purchase invoice matching system to the back end. It will do so to keep tabs on missing transactions and check over-claim of input tax credits in the goods and services tax (GST). Read more

Ola, Uber focus on tie-ups with mass transit firms to tap new users in 2018

After witnessing slowing growth over the past 18 months, India’s ride-hailing bigwigs are partnering mass transit companies. Both Ola and Uber have been tying up with mass transit companies, setting up easy-booking kiosks at metro stations and airports to grow user base. Read more

Modi's aim to contain fiscal deficit: Two options exist, both are painful

Prime Minister Narendra Modi wanted minimum slippage from the fiscal deficit target of 3.2 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) for 2017-18, sources said. Read more

Electric cars may soon sport green number plates

Indian roads may see a new colour on the number plates of cars — a green one, with the NITI Aayog planning such a move for electric vehicles. Read more
READ MORE

News digest: Bharat-22 ETF, GST rate cut, Mallya's trial, and more

SoftBank set to take driver's seat in Ola

Japanese investment giant SoftBank is close to acquiring an additional 10-12 per cent stake in ANI Technologies, the parent company of Ola, to increase its holding in the ride-hailing firm to around 50 per cent ahead of its planned investment in global rival Uber. SoftBank will pay between $400 million and $500 million to Tiger Global, the second-largest backer of Ola, to give the US firm a partial exit, people familiar with the development told Business Standard on condition of anonymity. Read more

Reliance Industries, Adani, REC issue $1.7-billion bonds

Reliance Industries, Adani Abbot Point Terminal, and Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) on Monday launched bond issues overseas worth $1.7 billion in order to reduce their finance costs. The bond issues follow last week’s upgrade by Moody’s of India’s sovereign rating from the lowest investment grade Baa3 to a notch higher at Baa2. The agency has also upgraded the ratings of several public sector companies such as State Bank of India, Indian Oil Corporation, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, and NTPC as well as those of private sector lender HDFC Bank. Read more

Vijay Mallya's extradition trial confirmed from December 4

Vijay Mallya, 61, the beleaguered Indian businessman facing an extradition demand from the Indian government in a British court, will fight the attempt to drag him back to India not just on the issue of poor prison conditions in India, but on the alleged demerits of New Delhi’s argument. Read more
READ MORE

Are drivers for Ola, Uber working as their employees? Delhi HC to decide

Can drivers working for app-based taxi companies like Ola and Uber be considered as their employees?

This was a question raised on Monday before the Delhi High Court which sought to know the Centre's stand on the issue.

Apart from the central government, Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva also issued notice to the Delhi government, Uber and ANI Technologies, which provides cab services under the name of Ola, and sought their responses by August 10 on the issue raised by a drivers' union.

The Delhi Commercial Driver Union, which claims to represent around 1.5 lakh drivers operating in the national capital region, has alleged that the two companies were not treating them as employees and instead "exploiting" them.

It has claimed in its plea that the drivers were being exploited with regard to their pay and service conditions and were also being denied benefits like compensation in case of accidents or deaths while on duty, under the labour laws.

The Delhi government, during the hearing, told the court that the issue raised was either an industrial dispute or a policy decision to be taken by the administration.
READ MORE

Ola raises Rs 670 cr from Ratan Tata-backed fund, other investors

SoftBank-backed Ola has raised Rs 670 crore ($104.4 million) in fresh funding from investors including UC-RNT Fund, a venture between the University of California and Ratan Tata.

While UC-RNT Fund has pumped in Rs 267.99 crore, another Rs 402 crore has been infused by FO Mauritius I Ltd, according to regulatory filing by ANI Technologies, which runs Ola.

However, the valuation of the company benchmarked against the fresh round of funding could not be ascertained.

The said shares were allotted to the investors on March 31 2017.

An email sent to the company remained unanswered.

The Bengaluru-based firm, which is locked in an intense battle with US-based Uber for market leadership, had raised about $250 million from SoftBank in November, albeit at a lower valuation of $3 billion (compared to $4.5 billion earlier).

ANI Technologies, which is not a publicly-traded company, has raised investments of over $1.5 billion from investors, including SoftBank Group, Tiger Global, Matrix Partners, Steadview Capital, Sequoia India, Accel Partners US and Falcon Edge.

While Ola has been successful in raising a sizable amount of funds, it continues to bleed on account of heavy advertising and promotional expenses and high employee cost.

The company posted a consolidated loss of over Rs 2,311 crore -- about Rs 6 crore a day -- during fiscal 2015-16.

ANI Technologies did see its revenues registering a stellar growth at Rs 758.23 crore during 2015-16 compared to Rs 103.77 crore in the previous fiscal.

Ola, which has a presence in 110 Indian cities compared to Uber's operations in 29, has been aggressively expanding its portfolio of services.
READ MORE

McDonald's asks users to update app after data leak scare

McDonald’s has asked users of its McDelivery service in India to update the app on their smartphones as a precaution, after a blog alleged that personal data of 2.2 million customers could have been leaked due to a vulnerability.

"We would like to inform our users that our website and app do not store any sensitive financial data of the users like credit card details, wallets passwords or bank account information,” said a McDonald’s India spokesperson.

Data security firm Fallible in a post on popular blogging platform Medium alleged that it had found the vulnerability in McDonald’s app, and despite receiving an acknowledgement from the company the issue was not fixed for over a month.

The post said information such as names, phone numbers, email ids, addresses, home coordinates and links to social handles of users of the McDelivery app were vulnerable to leak. Fallible traced the vulnerability to the presence of an “unprotected publicly accessible API endpoint” that could be used to access the user information.

“The lack of strong data protection and privacy laws or penalties in India, unlike the European Union, United States or Singapore has led to companies ignoring user data protection,” read the post by Fallible.

Fallible claims it contacted McDonald’s on February 7 regarding the vulnerability, and while it got an acknowledgement from a senior IT manager on February 13, the issue still was not fixed. The company followed the responsible disclosure policy, but upon seeing that the issue was not fixed decided to finally make the news public. (READ MORE)

Ola-Uber strike: Delhi HC orders striking unions to not block Uber's cabs

Latest News - The Delhi High Court on Monday restrained anyone from stopping or blocking the running of Uber's cabs, granting relief to the app-based taxi service provider whose services have been disrupted due to the recent strike by drivers.

In an interim order, Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw also issued notice to the two striking drivers unions and sought their response on Uber's plea against the strike.

Taxi drivers unions, Sarvodaya Driver Association of Delhi (SDAD) and Rajdhani Tourist Drivers' Union, including others acting on their behest, were also restrained by the court from "protesting, agitating, causing commotion violence in any manner in (Read More)

Ola slashes fares in Bengaluru despite driver protests of falling earnings

Latest News - Ola has slashed fares for customers by as much as 23 per cent in Bengaluru, its largest market in India, even as drivers in the city protest against reduced earnings due to decreasing incentive payouts and low fares.

In an email to customers in the city on Friday, the company said that it had dropped fares for its Mini category from Rs 10 per kilometer previously to Rs 8, and from Rs 13 per kilometer for its Prime service to Rs 10. Prices for Ola's Micro service continue to be Rs 6 per kilometer.

"We have revised our fares in Bengaluru, and we're now even more affordable than before! That means, whether it is a hatchback you need in minutes, or a comfortable sedan with Wi-Fi, when you travel within the city with (Read More)

Ola appoints Badri Raghavan as chief data scientist

Latest News - "This team will work across various business units and departments, to gain operational and business efficiencies, ranging from demand and supply prediction, driver behaviour and performance management, location Intelligence, to name a few," Ola said in a statement.

"Ola is moving on a much larger scale towards building technology based on deep insight into the Indian psyche, and for this, Big Data is a must," Ola CTO and co-founder Ankit Bhati said.

With over a million trips on the platform every day, an enormous amount of data is (Read More)