Ola aces Uber with interactive Play

Taxi-hailing app Ola has launched ‘Ola Play’, a connected, in-car interactive entertainment service for keeping the passengers entertained and comfortable.

The company claims to be the first connected car platform for ride sharing. “It’s world’s first connected car platform for ride sharing. I believe this will completely transform the consumer’s ride experience, giving the user the power to control the interactions within the car and usher in a new era in the ride-sharing industry,” co-founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal told reporters.

The new feature, launched in tie-up with Apple Music, Sony LIV, Audio Compass and Fynd, is currently being offered only in Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru.

This feature is limited to the vehicles manufactured by Mahindra & Mahindra and will be available only for Ola Prime, and for select customers. 

The company will extend the service to other cities in a phased manner. It will be rolled out in other cities and to over 50,000 vehicles by March 2017.

The move is aimed at luring the business travellers who mostly use mid-sized sedans away from the competitors, namely Uber. 

According to the company, Ola Play is powered by proprietary in-car and cloud technologies developed by the tax- aggregator, thereby having advance car controls, choice of personalised content and a fully-connected interactive experience for the end-user.

Ola Play transfers control of the in-car experience to users on their device from the driver console. Another way is to operate large screen devices mounted inside the car.