Why OLA has suddenly surpassed UBER? India.

I remember one of my flight from Bangalore to Delhi when I met a guy of my age seated next to me. Soon we started talking and even decided to share cab as we were to go to Noida at almost same place. He insisted on UBER and I asked him why not OLA as it is an Indian company. Those were the days of OLA money and cash, he said he it was difficult to have cash and OLA money usage is limited to cabs only but UBER had Paytm.

It's been over 4 years since then and now OLA is the most preferred cab service while UBER is in news for all wrong reasons. What has actually changed since then?

APP - If you see the UBER which has actually changed to better UI over the years but we are looking for a cab service and not a game for better graphics. OLA is of course more user friendly while UBER has become more complicated especially with the payment options which is frustrating in case of hurry.

Payment - The Cash option was a game changer for OLA, my friend was techie but most of the people aren't. They might not even have a Paytm account and cash looks good to them. Also, OLA has shown a great trust in their customers and have given new features like Ola credits. On other hand, UBER wants a minimum 350 Rs balance for a cashless service. The other option of syncing cards with app would never succeed because people here don't have faith in UBER like itself.

Service : UBER was always into cabs and forgot that most of the people in India still prefer Autos. OLA autos are big hits especially in non-metro cities where Auto-wallahs are not that moody. Also, it is way cheaper than cabs. UBER realized this quite late till then most of the Autos who were willing for this platform were already with OLA. UBER were late with Cash services, share services and are yet to experiment with Shuttle services.

In short UBER never tried to understand their Indian customers and only copied OLA's experimental ideas but we're always late in implementation until they lost their all business to OLA. Now OLA goes to UK and I am eager to know what would be their strategy to woo the English crowd.

Moral : Analysis of your market is more important than branding. When in Rome act like Romans.

Instead of Kohli, UBER should get few good Business Analyst.!