Bhavish Aggarwal, co-founder and CEO of ridesharing company OLA, has denied media reports claiming that his company is in talks with global ridesharing major Uber for a merger. Calling the reports ‘Absolute rubbish’, he said that if some other companies want to exit their business from India, they are welcome, without naming Uber.
Bhavish Aggarwal added that Ola is a profitable company and growing well, implying that it has no need to merge with Uber. He said, “We will never merge.”
Absolute rubbish. We’re very profitable and growing well. If some other companies want to exit their business from India they are welcome to! We will never merge. https://t.co/X3wC9HDrnr
— Bhavish Aggarwal (@bhash) July 29, 2022
The Ola Cabs and Ola Electric CEO made the comments on Twitter in response to a report by Economic Times, claiming that Ola and Uber are in talks for a possible merger. Similar reports were carried by other business media like Business Standard, and even regular media houses like NDTV.
Quoting sources, the reports had said that Bhavish Aggarwal met top Uber executives in San Francisco in the US recently. While Aggarwal didn’t comment on the report of this reported meeting, he has denied any possibility of merger. Following his tweet, an Ola spokesperson said, “We are the market leader in India and are much bigger than other player. Hence, merger of any kind is completely out of the equation.”
“We believe that India has a lot more opportunity to unlock when it comes to mobility services. As a strong vertically integrated mobility company we will further consolidate our position by any acquisition in the Indian market, if at all,” the spokesperson addd.
Similarly, Uber has also denied the speculations of merger. “That report is inaccurate. We are not, nor have we been, in merger talks with Ola,” Uber said in a statement, as reported by Reuters.
Ola and Uber are the two major players in India in the sector, and they are slugging it out in the intensely competitive market. While speculations of merger between the two emerge from time to time, both companies have denied any such possibility for now.
