Low-cost and luxury rides aside, Ola now has finance too to give Uber a tough competition

The last six months saw cab-aggregator company Ola spending much of its time strengthening its core, adding a breadth of services while also bringing on board a global rival of arch competitor Uber as its investor. This has made Ola take a lead over its competitor Uber, supported by new categories of low-cost and luxury rides.

Not only this, it has also increased focus on customer experience, and not to forget, it brought on board China's largest taxi-hailing service Didi Chuxing as an investor.

It was in February that Ola launched a new lower-fare category and named it Micro, while also expanding to 75 more cities. This also brought a new league of customers to its portfolio, given that at least 75% of 'Micro' customers used air-conditioned taxis for the first time, as told by Ola spokesperson to ET.

Ola, with 550,000 drivers registered on its platform, claims to command 70% of the market, while arch rival Uber says that it’s got a 50% share. While both Ola and Uber differ in their market share claims, none of them has been able to confirm their claims.

"Ola is fully aware that it can't afford to lose market share," Jaspal Singh, founder of transport-focused Valoriser Consultants, told ET. "It will be difficult for them to get it back. Uber has a strong financial platform and is putting money (into India) aggressively.

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