Taxi-aggregator company Ola has refuted claims made by a Mumbai-based newspaper that one of their investors is selling the stake to its rival, Uber.
The news comes amidst concerns that Uber might be playing the catch-up game with Ola reigning the market with its myriad form of cab solutions. Ola’s investors have reached out to the media highlighting their displeasure in such rumours being spread across the market about the company they have been funding to compete with Uber in the first place.
It cannot be further from the truth that Uber is attempting to take a stake in Ola. No such discussions have taken place and even if we are approached anytime in the future, we have no intentions of selling to Uber. We believe we are pulling away and continue to gain market share over Uber in India.Avnish Bajaj, Managing Director of Matrix Partners India,
In addition to quashing the stake buyout rumours, Ola has also affirmed its decision to penalise the media publication which has been bringing out these stories. According to them, the source and material accrued for the story do not add up and their assumptions are baseless.
We categorically deny the contents of a news article published by a Mumbai-based newspaper and its website, mentioning that certain investors in Ola plan to sell their stake to Uber. We would like to state that the article, attributed to an ‘unnamed source’ is completely false, misleading, malicious and planted.Ola Statement
The cab-aggregator giant is now set to initiate legal charges against the media group and seek the cost of damages made by the report.
We will initiate appropriate legal action and seek redressal and compensation for the damage caused to us by this irresponsible reporting from the newspaper.Ola Statement
Ola has been growing its fleet of cars over the past six months. With the second of Odd-Even kicking off this week, the company has added over 3000 cars to manage the public. Both the companies, Ola and Uber have been warned against surge pricing during this period in the Delhi/NCR region.
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