Today, Rapido has nearly half the share of the overall ride-hailing market, with monthly active users at ~50 million across bike, auto and cab taxi versus Uber’s 30 million (as of July-25).
It’s come a long way since founding in 2015, nearly 10 years ago, fighting the Uber-Ola duopoly to emerge as a dominant player of reckon. Even Uber CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi called Rapido a formidable competitor in India in his recent podcast with Nikhil Kamath.
Also, Rapido has been in the news recently – with the launch of food delivery services ‘Ownly’ to now fight the duopoly in food delivery. And its recent partnerships with OTA (Online Travel Aggregators) to launch flight, hotel, bus and train ticketing. It’s on a steady pursuit to become the everything app, for every Indian.
In this podcast, Shantanu and I explore in this podcast how Rapido began as a B2B logistics venture called The and pivoted to the bike taxi model, the evolution of the taxi and ride hailing segment in India, key aspects from Rapido’s business model like it’s zero commission fees, optimizing for ~4 min ETA and more. Do check it out!
Key Timestamps
00:10: Rapido – Introduction & Industry Context
03:44: Rapido's Big Market Moments & Partnerships
05:07: Founding and Evolution of Rapido
06:53: Initial Growth, Guerilla Marketing & Expansion
09:50: Regulatory and Safety Challenges
11:30: COVID Pivot – Grocery & Essential Deliveries
14:32: Product Expansion: Autos and Cabs
16:25: Execution Philosophy & Tier 2 City Focus
18:40: Early Investors and Strategic Advice
20:02: Competition: Rapido vs Ola/Uber Models
21:36: Ride-Hailing Industry Timeline in India
24:57: Rapido's Diversified Business Model
27:10: Subscription Model for Drivers
29:48: Driver Earnings and Platform Stickiness
32:23: Product Strategy vs Ola/Uber
33:56: Cost-Frugal Culture & Tech Optimization
36:20: Customer and Driver Experience Innovations
38:17: Founders’ Vision and Bharat Focus
40:05: Market Share, Financial Metrics & Operational Insights
43:10: Final Thoughts on Disruption and Growth