Rapido in midst of 500-city expansion; mobility opportunity offers strong upside: co-founder P Guntupalli

New Delhi: Ride-hailing app Rapido is in the midst of a 500-city expansion this year in India, a market where "vastness and depth" of mobility opportunity offers a high-growth upside, according to co-founder Pavan Guntupalli.

On whether the company is eyeing an IPO in the near term, Guntupalli told PTI that Rapido is clocking healthy growth, is well capitalised and "will take a call depending on situation". The focus, for now, is on growth, he asserts.

The commute app, which offers about 33 lakh rides every single day on its auto, bike taxi, and cab services expects to grow "sustainably".

"We are seeing strong growth, we have already turned market leaders in the two-wheeler industry, and the three-wheeler industry. And we are also glad that in a couple of cities we operate in, we are also market leaders in the four wheeler-industry.

“We are currently doing the five lakh rides in cabs and expect strong growth, and this is on the back of our SaaS (software as a service) innovation," he said referring to Rapido's model of platform access fee, instead of commission per ride that the company says maximises earnings for its ‘captains' or drivers.

Rapido clocks about 33 lakh rides per day, he said adding "however, if you compare it to the opportunity as to what India has to offer, we have barely scratched the surface".

"And just for comparison, if you look at our neighboring country, which has almost similar population, more than a billion...if you see there, the market leader there does around three crore rides every single day. So you can imagine the vastness and the depth of the opportunity of mobility available in India," he said.

Citing the diverse requirements of Indian mobility market across cities, he said Rapido - from the very beginning - believed that each sub market is unique and needs a "solution of its own", depending on specific needs.

He emphasised that Rapido's solutions are geared to providing convenience, affordability and accessibility.

"What we mean by that is, in a small town, maybe there are a lot more two wheelers, a relatively lesser number of three wheelers, and very less number of four wheelers," he said adding that team Rapido is focused on solutions customised to the needs of specific cities and markets.

"Majority of our growth as of today...more than 35 per cent of the rides that we do are in are in smaller cities...and further to drive that, we have now announced a 500-city expansion. So within this year, we are going to expand into 500 more cities to fuel our growth as well as expansion," Guntupalli said.

Of nearly 33 lakh rides daily, more than 50 per cent (15 lakh) are in two-wheelers category, close to 13 lakh rides in three-wheeler segment and 5 lakh rides in four wheeler space.

"We have forayed into our four-wheeler industry a year ago, and with the help of the innovations that we have done, namely the SaaS model, we have seen tremendous growth in this segment as well," he said.

The initial phase of expansion is in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

"So out of the 500 cities, we have already expanded to more than 50 cities. The next phase would be Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, and slowly, we'll be moving towards the northern states," he said.

Asked about competition, Guntupalli said the ride-hailing app would like to bring traditional, offline 'captains' to its platform and expand the addressable market.

"So we consider majorly our offline, the existing status quo, as our competition...for us, the competition is more how the situation is in the offline industry, and how can we bring them online...we need to figure out solutions as to how to expand the market, how to enable more safety, how to enable more captains in the offline industry who are not participating, to come online," he said.

Rapido has been growing at a fast clip and at sustainable pace, as per him.

"So we are not in need of money, the recent funding we are getting is part of our plan to invest in sustainability infrastructure and fuel our expansion," he said.

At the moment, the company is not looking at overseas expansion.

"We believe that India has a very strong potential...for the next decade...India is the place where we need to be and given both requirement and growth potential in the country, we believe we are rightly placed to crack the Indian market and we will focus on that," he said.