Ride-hailing start-up Ola Cabs is fighting a bruising war with Uber in India but its co-founder and CEO, Bhavish Aggarwal, believes that his company can win against competition “however brutal it may turn out to be.” In an interview with BusinessLine , Aggarwal shares the company’s plans for India and how he plans to expand its operations into other countries. Excerpts:

The Competitive Commission of India recently ruled that it will ensure that competition is not compromised because of common investments among companies especially in the case of Ola and Uber, which has investments from SoftBank. Is this a spoke in your plans?

Competition, in general, is good for the all stakeholders in the market. Competition has made the company stronger, made us more innovative. We really appreciate competition as it helps customers access more choices. We will respect whatever the CCI requires us to do and we will do it quite proactively. We will do everything that is required to preserve competition in the industry and make sure that the regulatory agencies are comfortable with our efforts.

If you leave aside Uber, will you be still interested in acquiring another cab-hailing company?

The industry is evolving fast and the opportunities are ahead of us. Wherever this industry has got to, it is still too early in the game. There is a lot of innovation that needs to be done, lot more services to be built and we want to continue to innovate for the customers.

What are your investors telling you? Are they also part of the decision-making process?

Investors have their own pieces in the companies they invest in. They don’t focus on the operations part of the company. Their end goal is that they make money from every investment. Our focus has been to make sure that we compete aggressively in the market, that we innovate and to make sure that Ola is run as an independent entity.

If you look at Uber and the whole controversy surrounding it, especially in the US and in some European countries, how do you ensure that Ola avoids such pitfalls now that even your company has gone global?

Our DNA is different. If you are not open to learning, you don’t improve and one of the core ways of doing business is to keep learning, The ultimate gold standard is the customer. As soon as you become arrogant, the customer throws you out. At the same time, the customer always wants more. He is always ahead of the curve. Therefore, we have to ensure that we continuously build value for our customers.

Some time back, there was this controversy about capital dumping and companies like yours and Flipkart took a stand against such a practice. Is that issue now buried?

As Ola and as a country we need to have a large, vibrant independent internet sector. Ola is one such large internet company. We aim to keep it so. We aim to list the company very soon. We aim to create wealth in India for Indians.

That is our focus and I think as a society whatever needs to be done... this does not mean we will not fight competition. We are open to any kind of competition as brutal as it may turn out to be. We are confident that we will end up on the winning side.

We will innovate for the customer and make sure we will fight as aggressively as possible. We are not afraid of any competition in the world. Past few years have been a testimony to our ability to compete in an open market. But to the extent of enabling a vibrant internet economy, we would put our weight behind whatever measures any stakeholder would take. The companies which can stare down any global competition and win against them.

So, capital dumping is no longer an issue?

It was not even my narrative or that of Sachin (Bansal). It was more about whatever the people felt we were trying to say. What we were trying to say was that India needs its own vibrant economy with its own companies and the opportunity for us was to see to it that we build one of the world’s leading internet companies. We believe we can be as good or better than anyone else in the world.

How much do you plan to raise from the IPO?

It is a bit too early. We want to list the company in two-three years. We want to list the company and want to create value for the shareholders in India so that Indians can be proud of our achievements. Therefore, I believe the IPO is a logical step in that direction.

You said that you are profitable per drive. Does it mean you are overall profitable?

We are operationally profitable. Ola India business is profitable. As a group, we have many more initiatives. We are very close to becoming fully profitable.

You have now started operations in Australia. Will you start in other countries like the US? But before that, why did you pick Australia to start your first operations outside India?

It is too early to say anything now. Right now, our focus is Australia. It is a very large market and Australia is a country that welcomes competition. Culturally, they like somebody challenging the status quo. The market needed something better as a solution, both on the consumer side and the driver side. We are seeing great growth in Australia.

Within those three years before the IPO, will you be raising funds?

We might do so. But the focus is to build a sustainable business and take the company public.

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