Ola, originally an Indian cab aggregator rivaling Uber, expanded into the electric vehicle market with Ola Electric. Earlier this year, they further diversified their portfolio by launching Ola Krutrim, a technology company specializing in cloud computing and artificial intelligence.
Earlier this month, Ola Krutrim launched the Ola Maps platform for developers. To promote its launch, Ola Krutrim founder Bhavish Aggarwal launched the #ExitGoogleMaps campaign on social media, urging Indian developers to switch from Google Maps to Ola Maps. In response to the Ola Maps launch, Google recently reduced its Maps platform prices by 70% and added support for payments in Indian rupees.
In response to significant demand from developers and to put further pressure on Google, Ola announced its new pricing structure today. Ola will now offer 5 million free API calls per month to all developers in India. Ola claims this new free tier will cover more than 90% of Indian developers and startups.
For larger-volume developers, Ola Maps has new pricing that is 50% lower than Google Maps' recently reduced pricing. Additionally, for customers who commit to Ola Maps for three or more years, Ola will offer its solution for free for the first two years. Also, Ola Maps will offer three years of free access to all startups and SMBs building on India's ONDC platform.
Apart from its aggressive pricing strategy, Ola Maps also announced an aggressive product roadmap, aiming to reach feature parity with Google Maps by the end of this year. In the coming months, Ola Maps will release a suite of new and improved APIs, feature-rich SDKs for web, Android, and iOS platforms, as well as comprehensive documentation, tutorials, and a community forum for knowledge sharing to assist developers during the migration process.
Ola Krutrim founder Bhavish Aggarwal wrote the following in a blog post announcing the new pricing and roadmap for Ola Maps:
To every Indian developer, every startup founder, every tech enthusiast: this is our moment. We will seize it and build world-class products that are proudly Indian and globally competitive. We will show the world that India isn't just a market - we're the next big tech powerhouse.
With its aggressive pricing and product roadmap, Ola Maps has the potential to disrupt the market and challenge Google's dominance. The success of Ola Maps could pave the way for more homegrown technology solutions in India.
Source: Ola
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