Mahindra eyes ride-hailing pie
Anand Says Co Looking At
Partnerships, Incubating Smaller Players
The $19-billion diversified
Mahindra group is set to foray into the highly competitive ride-hailing and cab
aggregation business -currently dominated by the likes of Uber and Ola -as
chairman Anand Mahindra believes that the days of personal commuting may be
limited, especially in congested cities and metros. Electric vehicles will be
the preferred choice for ride aggregators, as demand for petrol and diesel cars
starts “tapering off “.
Mahindra said segments such
as “plain-vanilla sedan“ are a “threatened species“ as more and more
individuals opt for shared mobility to save the hassles of new car purchase,
insurance, maintenance, and parking. “Even my daughters have no intention of
owning a car for commuting.This reality is now at home,“ Mahindra told TOIon
the side lines of the Formula-E (electric) Racing here. “There will be a levelling
off, or a sinking in the personal commuting segment. There will be a dramatic
shift in the customer segment. Overall, will it go down? Hopefully yes, as we
want less cars on the streets,“ he said.
Mahindra said much of the
industry's growth will be fuelled by the car-hailing business.“It is like
recognising a new reality. We cannot expect the auto industry to grow like this
in the absence of ride-share.“
Asked if Mahindra is
looking at anything on the lines of Ola and Uber or having partnerships with
such companies, Mahindra said, “We will look at every possibility .“ He,
however, added that unlike Uber or Ola, which burn tremendous amounts of cash
to keep customers rolling in, Mahindra will look at niche solutions.“For
example, why shouldn't Mahindra have a ride-sharing app that offers Thar SUVs
in Goa? The niche applications will do better. We will not burn cash.“ The
group will also look at incubating some of the companies that are already
engaged in the business.
Last year, it had signed a
deal with Ola to supply 40,000 cars. Others too are eyeing the ride-sharing
business. Hero MotoCorp, the country's largest two-wheeler maker, has expressed
its intent to get into the category, while Ford India bought a stake in
car-sharing company Zoomcar.
Mahindra's entry into the
business will coincide with the development of new electric ve hicles by the
group that will cater to the shared-mobility segment. “Mahindra intends to not
only make the product like lowcost, spacious, urban electric taxis, but we also
plan to invest in the ride-sharing space... we will look at partnerships and
other investments because we think that the industry is going to be one of
solutions, and not just products.“
The group has already got a
taste of the business in a limited fashion when it invested in Scoot
Networks, an urban mobility solutions provider in San Francisco that also uses
the company's `GenZe' electric scooters. “The new philosophy of millennials and
many others is that they want access to transportation, not ownership. They
prefer ride-hailing, or car-pooling... This will come first in dense urban
clusters,“ added Mahindra.
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Pankaj
Doval
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New York (The
writer is in the US at the invitation of Mahindra)
TOI 17JUL17
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