At the occasion, Mahindra group chairman Anand Mahindra, who had earlier expressed apprehensions over taxi-hailing cabs eating into auto sales, said it is very obvious that the youngsters would prefer to use shared viability as it offers convenience and low costs.
Ola Cabs co-founder and chief executive officer Bhavish Aggarwal feels that popularity of taxi-hailing apps won't hit the car sales instead prop them up.
"While shared mobility in India will increase, the aspirational value of car remains as few years down the line, people will save the money and will buy premium cars for themselves," Aggarwal said at a press conference to announce the ride-sharing company's tie-up with Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M).
At the occasion, Mahindra group chairman Anand Mahindra, who had earlier expressed apprehensions over taxi-hailing cabs eating into auto sales, said it is very obvious that the youngsters would prefer to use shared viability as it offers convenience and low costs.
"However, at the same time people would love to enjoy the driving experience which comes with getting the ownership of the car," he said.
He was responding to to a question whether there been any change in his thinking as M&M has got into a tie-up with Ola.
Mahindra in September last year had said the automobile industry should create products which would be loved by the customers for its ownership rather than just as a tool of transport.
Taking a dig at the attempts to control the surge pricing of taxi-hailing services like Ola and Uber, Mahindra and Mahindra (M&M)'s Anand Mahindra said that now even the Indian Railways are getting into it.
"Today morning, I read in the newspapers that even Indian Railways will be coming with surge pricing. Earlier their use to be outrage over the surge pricing adopted by the likes of Ola and Uber. According to me, in near future surge pricing will become important business mechanism," said Anand Mahindra, chairman of $17.8 billion Mahindra Group.
Under the alliance with Ola, M&M will sell over 40,000 units in next two years apart from offering various facilities including easy financing, insurance, personal loans, pre-owned cars and scholarships (to drivers' children) to Ola drivers under a single umbrella.
The partnership is expected to boost M&M's earning by around Rs 2,600 crore over the next couple of years. The development is also expected to give a new lease of life to Verito, whose sales are stagnating at around 200 units per month. The domestic taxi market is worth nearly around Rs 80,000 crore.
The announcement comes in the backdrop of rival Tata Motors doing a similar collaboration with Uber. Ola has also tied up with Japan-headquartered Nissan India for lease-purchase of cars by its drivers.
According to M&M, in the long-run, with battery cost and sticker prices coming down, all shared mobility will come to electric vehicles as it will be much cheaper than other types of fuel.
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