“India is there… money has to be made…” Bhavish Aggarwal gave a big blow to ONDC after making Ola Mobility profitable.

Ola Mobility’s new CEO Hemant Bakshi along with founder Bhavish Aggarwal announced that Ola’s India mobility business has become “EBITDA positive in FY23”. Emphasizing on electric rides and its premium Prime Plus service, Agarwal also stressed that Ola is focusing on leveraging ONDC for further growth.

ANI Technologies (parent company of Ola) recently appointed former Unilever executive Hemant Bakshi as its new CEO. Before joining Ola about four months ago, Bakshi was executive VP of Marketplace and chairperson of Unilever Indonesia.

“India’s economic growth is unstoppable and we aspire to serve 1 billion Indians. We are proud to serve India at scale with a vast and integrated ecosystem empowering consumers and enabling partners. As a technology-first business, leading with innovation, we are confident of leading the country’s mobility ambitions and leading the next phase of growth in the industry at large,” said Bhavish Aggarwal, Founder, Chairman and MD, Ola. Said.

According to the company, Ola’s India mobility business recorded consolidated revenue from operations and other income for FY23 at Rs 3,000 crore, compared to Rs 2,120 crore in FY22. EBITDA loss excluding discontinued businesses narrowed to Rs 29 crore in FY23. 291 crore in FY22. ANI Technologies standalone (Ola’s India mobility business) total revenue grew 48% in FY23 to Rs 2135 crore in FY22 from Rs 1350 crore in FY22. Total revenue includes revenue from operations and other income. At the same time, the company earned standalone revenue of Rs 2,135 crore and segment-adjusted EBITDA of about Rs 250 crore in FY23.

Responding to media queries related to competition from new ride-hailing apps that charge low or no commission from their partner drivers, Aggarwal said, “No business model can survive by claiming 0% commission. India is… money has to be made… To attract new users and increase initial market share, things like no commission or offers can help. We also made many proposals… but these cannot help in development in the long run,” he said.

Ola is looking to increase its market penetration by providing affordable rides with electric scooters and is aiming to use its technology and network for partners and consumers to expand its ONDC arm.

“Many people do not fully understand ONDC. I think India, together with ONDC, has made huge innovations which other countries do not have. India has unified commerce and democratized it at the same time. It will gain momentum with time. People like us will have to join this. With ONDC, the entire ecosystem can perform well instead of a single wall making money. Even more, ONDC will dramatically increase the reach of digital commerce in India,” Agarwal said.

Focusing on core technologies, the company also revamped its own “Ola Maps” to improve driving efficiency and reduce costs.

“In the consumer digital world, we need to control some core technologies and one of them is location services. We were previously dependent on ‘US companies’ and their APIs for our location needs. One of the most important things in urban mobility is good mapping solutions that can help in better traffic estimation, efficient routing, better landmarking and understanding new points of interest among others. We invested in building our own Ola Maps before Covid and took step-by-step action. Ola Maps is not an overnight development. We hired some early talent and didn’t make much noise about it. We have been improving various aspects of maps with optimized features over the years and with high quality data of Indian roads, we keep improving our algorithms. Right now, we are mostly using Ola Maps for both drivers and consumers,” he said.