Ola was one of the first cab hailing service that was started out from India in 2010. Ola has established itself in the Indian market and is currently serving over 125 million registered users via more than a million drivers across India. The Cab Aggregator has survived the ongoing battle with Uber and is all set to introduce its services outside India.

The company has started recruiting drivers across Sydney, Melbourne, and Perth. This is for the first time that Ola will be setting its feet outside India. Earlier this month, reports had surfaced that Ola will be expanding its services to Australia, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. However, the company is not commenting on those expansions.

Its worth mentioning that Didi Chuxing (China-based cab aggregator) is an investor in Ola and the former has already acquired a Brazilian cab hailing company “99”. Post-acquisition, Didi has expanded its service to Brazil and Taiwan. Currently, Uber is dominating the Australian cab aggregator market and operates in over 20 cities across the country and New Zealand. Meanwhile, Didi seems to be fortifying its foothold in Australia. Further intensifying the battle is Taxify, yet another Didi backed company that has already been launched in Australia.

Bhavish Agarwal, CEO Ola, commented as following, “We are very excited about launching Ola in Australia and see immense potential for the ride-sharing ecosystem which embraces new technology and innovation” he further added that “With a strong focus on driver-partners and the community at large, we aim to create a high-quality and affordable travel experience for citizens and look forward to contributing to a healthy mobility ecosystem in Australia.”

Uber had sold its China business to Didi Chuxing in 2016 after it was losing $1 billion a year. Didi apparently had an upper-hand in China wherein they were serving 80 percent market share. Uber and Ola have two investors in common, Didi and Softbank. It will be interesting to see how the battle between Didi and Uber will shape up, especially since both the companies have common investors.