Uber has announced that it will give passengers in India free Wi-Fi access. The move is an attempt to lure in passengers in a market where local ride-sharing rivals currently dominate.
The Wi-Fi hotspots will be created through 4G Airtel devices, which will be given to all Uber drivers in Mumbai. The hotspots will be given in partnership with Bharti Airtel.
"It's a war of better products and convenience and features for riders," said Uber India president Amit Jain in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. "The dwell times in [traffic in] India are one of the longest in the world and making constructive use of that time by people able to access emails, communicate with friends and family is a feature that is very beneficial to consumers."
Once a passenger enters the car, they will be given a Wi-Fi password by the driver. Uber says that it is working on ways to prevent giving Wi-Fi access to customers who book through rival apps, and that it will be looking into whether data usage coincides in any way with rides through its service.
Uber, like a number of other ride-hailing services, does not employ drivers. Instead, drivers work for Uber on a contract basis and can switch to working for another company by simply switching off the Uber app. In the past, Uber has attempted to provide incentives to drivers to exclusively work for their company by raising rates after drivers have operated Uber vehicles for a specific number of hours on a daily basis.
In India, Uber itself has around 150,000 drivers and approximately around a 35 percent market share. Currently, ride-sharing app Ola, owned by ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd, dominates. Ola has around 250,000 cars on the roads in over 100 Indian cities. It organizes approximately 750,000 trips each day.
Unfortunately for Uber, Ola beat it by announcing that it would offer free Wi-Fi to its most loyal customers on Wednesday. Uber, however, says that it plans on investing $1 billion in India throughout the next nine months in an attempt to develop new and improved products for customers in the country.
