Ola's free in-car infotainment platform Play available in 50,000 cabs now

India's largest taxi aggregator Ola has said its in-car infotainment platform Ola Play is now available across 50,000 cabs on its platform. Using this facility customers can access movies, videos and music online.

Rolled out a little over six months ago, Ola had said that Play would be offered on every cab on its platform over a period of time. The company started with providing the service in its Prime sedans across key metros, and said it would take it to Chennai, Pune and Kolkata next.

"We are looking forward to launching Play for customers in several other cities, and providing a more enriching experience with an intelligent and context-aware platform," said Ankit Jain, Vice President and Head of Ola Play.

Ola has partnered with Apple Music, EROS Now, BookMyShow, AIB, and Lattu Kids, among others, to give customers access to their content when inside a cab booked through its app. The company launched Play with the intention that customers would pick riding with it over rival Uber for a better in-car experience.

Play is one way Ola is looking to pull away from Uber, apart from offering a wider variety of categories on its platform.

However, Play also recently became a centre of controversy for Ola, after Bengaluru-based Lahari Recording Company filed a police complaint against the company and its founders for downloading and streaming songs from popular movies, to which it held the rights. Tulasiram Naidu, director of Lahari, said that Ola had not approached the company to procure rights for any of its music.

Ola's legal counsel had said that the company "has been dragged into this issue with a mala fide intention", however, the company chose not to comment on the development. Sources told Business Standard that both founders of Ola, Ankit Bhati and Bhavish Aggarwal had received anticipatory bail with regard to the case.