ONDC's pilot of Ola, Uber challenger in Kolkata crosses 5,000 rides per day, prepares for launch

ONDC's mobility pilot in Kolkata already boasts of around 250,000 completed trips, 365,000 registered users, 18,600 registered driver partners and around Rs 7 crore in driver’s earnings

Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) is now looking east. Its cab-hailing pilot in Kolkata via the West Bengal government's Yatri Sathi app, which is expected to challenge Ola and Uber, has crossed an average of 5,000 rides a day in September and could see a full-scale launch in the next few weeks, according to people in the know.

The e-commerce network's mobility pilot in Kolkata, which started in July, has already seen around 250,000 completed trips, 365,000 registered users, 18,600 registered driver partners, and around Rs 7 crore in driver earnings.

ONDC has already started ride-hailing services in the south, in cities like Bengaluru, Mysuru, and Kochi, and is now looking to expand to cities in other parts of the country.

In Bengaluru, the mobility vertical of the network is already doing almost 1 lakh rides per day through the Namma Yatri app, denting the dominance of ride-hailing majors like Ola and Uber. After one year of operations, the app has seen more than 10 million trips completed, over Rs 150 crore in driver earnings, almost 2 million registered users, and 95,000 registered drivers.

Also read: Understanding ONDC, the open network billed to be the UPI of e-commerce

Backed by the government, ONDC seeks to prevent the dominance of a few large platforms, such as Amazon, Flipkart, Swiggy, Zomato, Uber and Ola in the e-commerce, food delivery and ride-hailing sectors.

The government hopes to boost e-commerce penetration in the country to 25 percent over the next few years, reaching 900 million buyers and 1.2 million sellers through the network. It is projected to generate a gross merchandise value of $48 billion.

Recently, ONDC revised the structure of its incentive scheme to give more flexibility to buyer-side apps on how they disburse discounts to consumers, lowered the average subsidies given in the food category by half, and provided for a boost to the density of merchants on the network in 45 non-metro districts.

The network is gearing up to hit 200,000 transactions a day by the end of the year and the government is also working to bring financial products to ONDC in the next couple of months.

On the retail side, 54,500 merchants have joined ONDC, offering about 75 lakh stock-keeping units (SKUs). In the past couple of months, they have averaged around 20,000 orders per day, with a peak of 35,000 orders as yet.

For its next phase of growth, ONDC has multiple strategies in place. For example, to popularise the network in tier 2 and 3 cities and beyond, it has started an online educational course for merchants that will be disseminated in 14 to 18 languages. Additionally, state broadcaster Doordarshan will soon begin regular programming to educate buyers and sellers about ONDC across the country.