Ola to buy Nissan, Datsun cars to compete with Uber
Ola expects to sign similar partnerships with other carmakers to achieve its target of adding 1,00,000 vehicles by 2016-end to its car leasing programme, the company said in an emailed statement.
Ride-hailing company Ola on Tuesday said it will buy cars from Japanese carmaker Nissan Motor Co's local unit to expand its fleet, as it competes with the US-based rival Uber for a bigger share of the market.
Ola expects to sign similar partnerships with other carmakers to achieve its target of adding 1,00,000 vehicles by 2016-end to its car leasing programme, the company said in an emailed statement.
The company, through its subsidiary Ola Fleet Technology Pvt Ltd, will lease cars to its driver partners against a deposit and a monthly rental that will include the vehicle's maintenance cost. After three years, the driver has the option to own the car, it said in the statement.
Ola, backed by Japan's Softbank Group Corp, will purchase vehicles from Nissan and its affiliate Datsun, but it did not specify the number of cars to be bought.
Nissan is struggling to grow its sales in India which fell 24% to less than 20,000 vehicles in the six months between April and September, during which time total passenger vehicles grew 6% to 1.3 million, industry data showed.