High Prices, Longer Waiting Time, Incentive Cuts For Cabbies Lead To Ola, Uber’s Slow Growth Over Past Six Months 

Cab aggregators Ola and Uber India, are seeing slow growth in the number of daily riders, the Economic Times reports.

As per the report, the number of daily rides has increased by a mere four per cent- from 3.5 million to 3.65 million, in the last half year.

The slow growth has affected consumers, as they now need to wait longer to avail a cab. This waiting time is said to have increased from four minutes around two years ago, to 12 to 15 minutes. Further, fares in non-peak hours in major cities have also increased by around 15 to 20 per cent.

Huge cuts in driver incentives have also led to supply shortage of cab drivers which is another reason for the low single-digit growth in the business, the ET report adds. 40 per cent of driver incentives were cut in the past year resulting in some cabbies defaulting on their loan payments.

Another reason for the slow growth of the duo is the falling vehicle registration. According to the Maharashtra state transport department website, the number of tourist cabs registering fell from 66,683 in 2017-18 to 24,386 in 2018-19. Most of the tourist cabs largely work with the cab aggregators.