Ola, Uber challenger Namma Yatri crosses 5 mn users, $50 mn in driver earnings

Namma Yatri has onboarded more than 213,000 auto-rickshaw and cab drivers across 7 cities

Namma Yatri, a ride hailing app on Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), which is seen as a challenger to the Ola-Uber duopoly in the industry, has crossed two important milestones — 5 million users and $50 million in driver earnings since starting its operations in November 2022.

As of February 27, Namma Yatri users completed 28 million trips during the platform’s lifetime, which led to driver earnings of $51.75 million  (Rs 427.69 crore) across 7 cities – Bengaluru, Kolkata, Kochi, Mysore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Delhi.

While the platform also offers cab rides in Kolkata, Kochi and Chennai, users can only avail of auto-rickshaw rides in the other cities as of now. It has onboarded more than 2,13,000 auto-rickshaw and cab drivers across these cities.

At the launch of its service in the national capital last month, the mobility platform, backed by fintech startup Juspay, said that it had improved its ride-hailing unit economics substantially by cutting tech and marketing costs.

In January 2023, a Namma Yatri ride used to cost the company Rs 219.5. However, by December, this number had dropped 96 percent to Rs 8.6.

Of the Rs 8.6 per trip, Rs 2 accounts for tech and data costs, while Rs 1.5 is attributed to marketing and operations.

The app says it works on a zero-commission model. Drivers can use it for a subscription fee of Rs 25 per day for unlimited rides or Rs 3.5 per trip as a lead generation fee.

According to data from Namma Yatri, more than 92 percent of the completed trips are due to Bengaluru while the lowest share is of Delhi where it was launched in January.

“It is growing in Delhi as well, but it will take time… at least till the weather condition improves and the awareness about the app picks up,” said Shan MS, chief growth officer, Juspay.

“Other categories are yet to be launched... The reason why we also went with auto-rickshaw is that there is a significant gap, which other players have not touched upon, especially the level of digitisation. It's a harder category to crack. And many of them don't even have smartphones,” he added.

ONDC clocked 3.5 million mobility (ride-hailing) bookings and 3 million retail purchases in January, taking the network's total transactions across categories to over 6.5 million during the month. This shows a month-on-month growth of 18 percent, compared to the 5.5 million transactions seen by the network in December.

The network’s goal is to not only make mobility apps inter-operable, but also allow users the ease to complete all their travel bookings on a single app itself.

As such, a commuter in India may soon be able to purchase QR-code tickets for metro rail, recharge their travel smart cards, and also book their last-mile commute through auto rickshaws or cabs on an interoperable travel app.

To that end, ONDC has been in discussions with nearly all metro operators in the country for integration. "ONDC recently had a meeting with the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. Metro operators were informed about the integration process and how interoperability would benefit them," he said.