Ride-hailing app Ola said that it has restarted bike service in Bengaluru. The company will now use its S1 scooters for bike rides, said cheif executive Bhavish Aggarwal. He added that Ola bike rides will cost ₹25 for 5 km and ₹50 for 10 km ride. The company will scale it across India over the next few months. “Restarting Ola Bike in Bengaluru today. This time, all electric and our own S1 scooters! Lowest cost, very comfortable and great for the environment! Will scale across India over next few months” he tweeted.
Recently, Ola Electric closed a $140 million funding round led by Singapore’s sovereign fund Temasek, valuing the electric scooter manufacturer at $5.4 billion.
Doubling capacity
Ola Electric plans to double its electric vehicle manufacturing capacity from one million units per annum to two million units per annum within the next 6–9 months, reported businessline. Bhavish Aggarwal, founder of the company, expressed optimism about its financial growth and said that the recently launched products, along with the upcoming ones, would boost revenues and profit.
“The financial year 2022 was primarily an investment phase for us. We commenced product sales only in January of the previous year, resulting in revenue being realised that year. FY23 has been a strong revenue year for us, and in fact, our bottom line has improved significantly,” said Aggarwal during a media roundtable. It has yet to file its financials for FY23.
The company, which after a long delay, posted its FY22 numbers, reported a loss of ₹784.1 crore, compared to ₹199.2 crore loss in FY21. However, it saw a significant improvement in revenue at ₹373.4 crore in FY22, up from ₹86 lakh in FY21.
Backed by SoftBank, Ola plans to raise between $600 million and $1 billion in its initial public offering (IPO).