After one and a half years of taking over TaxiForSure, cab-hailing taxi app services Ola has snapped ties with it and is laying off upto 1,000 employees. At the time, TFS had 1,700 employees.
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The development also comes at a time when the SoftBank-backed aggregator is looking to reduce its cash burn as the battle with rival Uber is set to intensify in the country. The San Francisco-based company is understandably shifting more attention to regions such as India for further growth.
The Didi-Uber deal has complicated things for Ola, which sees Didi as one of its top investors.
Almost one and a half year ago, Ola had acquired the rival company TaxiForSure for a whopping $200 million to become the market leader against Uber.
This was the statement released by Ola said, “The TaxiForSure (TFS) value proposition as an economy brand for customers, has been seamlessly integrated onto the Ola platform with the launch and rapid adoption of Ola Micro”.
Ola has given the employees three months’ salary as compensation, media reports quoting insider sources have said. While Ola had said it would maintain TaxiForSure as an independent entity, the company soon began moving drivers from TFS to its own platform.
Ola had estimated that its “Micro” service, which offers cabs for as low as Rs 6 (8 cents) per kilometre would be as big as Uber’s entire operations in India.
TaxiForSure’s integration with Ola Micro may lead to roughly 700 to 1000 people losing their jobs, suggest reports.
“With all TaxiForSure driver-partners and customers coming on board the Ola app, the integration is now complete”.
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Eighteen months after acquiring rival TaxiForSure for $200 million, cab aggregator Ola said it has made a decision to “integrate” the radio taxi service with its micro cab service after absorbing as many employees as possible and extending enhanced severance benefits to others.
