Cab aggregator Ola, one of the worst-hit startups in India during Covid-19 pandemic, doubled its revenue in the financial year-ended March 2022, reflecting a recovery from the hurt caused by lockdowns.
The Softbank-backed company, led by chief executive Bhavish Aggarwal, reported a consolidated operating revenue of Rs 1,970.4 crore during FY22, compared to Rs 983.2 crore in the year before, according to the annual report filed with the Registrar of Companies.
The recovery, which comes as employees go back to offices and an improvement in travel demand, is still far from its pre-pandemic scale. In FY20, before a national lockdown was induced, Ola had reported revenue of Rs 2,662.3 crore on a consolidated basis.
The growth in sales, however, also came along with increased costs. Ola also widened its losses to Rs 1,522.33 crore during the year, compared to Rs 1,116.6 crore in FY21.
Due to inactivity, the company has been forced to cut its costs and lay off staff to narrow its losses from Rs 2,208.2 crore in FY20.
Ola business extends beyond mobility, with added financial services offerings including payment system, insurance agents, and cloud kitchens among others.
It derived about 61% of its revenue from the ride-hailing business in the country, which had a loss of Rs 101 crore during the year. Financial services constituted a small part of the revenue.
Most of Ola's losses came from its ‘Other’ segment, which comprises cab hailing business outside India, business of buy and sell of used cars, cloud kitchens and stores business. The segment reported a revenue of Rs 666.4 crore during the year.
On the cost front, the company’s expenses grew 67.5% to Rs 3,362.1 crore in FY22.
The company counts Tiger Global, Matrix Partners, Temasek, Warburg Pincus as its investors. Recently, one of its investors, US-based investment firm Vanguard, again slashed the Bengaluru-based company’s valuation.
Founded in December 2010, Ola was founded by Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati (former CTO). two IIT Bombay graduates. It now services over 250 locations in India, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. It is backed by marquee investors such as SoftBank, Tiger Global, Matrix Partners, Temasek, Warburg Pincus and many others. Ola became a unicorn (private companies with a valuation of $1 billion or more) in 2015.
