Ola Play registers 200 percent quarter-on-quarter growth

Taxi and auto aggregator Ola on Thursday announced that its connected car platform, Ola Play, registered a 200 percent quarter-on-quarter growth in terms of the number of rides, and is now installed in over 50,000 Prime Play Cars.

The first phase, that transferred the control of the ride experience to the backseat, now brings deeper integrations for both customers and driver partners. This involves a more context-aware platform for customers and an intelligent platform that seamlessly connects with the car as a smart IoT machine for efficient driving.

Customer research has revealed that depending on the length of the ride, customers across demographics love to engage with latest as well as retro Bollywood and Hollywood music, watch movies, short web series, tune in to the radio, as well as let their kids enjoy animated videos. Ola Play offers all of this and a lot more.

With a significant increase from the initial set of partners, Play now has over 30 partners across categories such as Apple Music, EROS Now, BookMyShow and AIB among several others. In addition to this, content will be curated based on their choices made and the destination they are riding to, making Play an intuitive platform.

"The appreciation and growth Ola Play has seen in a short span of time, is extremely exciting for us; but it is only the beginning for the industry's first connected car platform for ridesharing. We are looking forward to launching Play for customers in several other cities. At the core of these innovations is the focus on building a platform that ensures the ride is enjoyable, safe, and secure for both, the customer and driver partner," said Ankit Jain, Vice President and Head of Ola Play.

Ola also announced the launch of Play's pilot version in in Chennai, Pune and Kolkata, enabling access to Ola Play in a total of seven cities across India, with an aim to launch in 10 more cities by end of 2017. The increased availability of Ola Play will not only serve Ola's growing customer base, but is in line with the company's strategy to use innovative technology to offer customised mobility solutions for all Indians.

The experience of the platform will change to give way to a more convenient app-like experience for seamless navigation between options on the platform. With this feature, customers will be able to interact with Play and partner apps just the way they use various apps on their mobile phones, accessing the entire range of content made available by the partner on their app.