Ola reportedly planning to lay off 500 employees from software teams as it tries to shore up e-scooter sales

Ola is one of the two apps that you look for on your smartphone while booking a ride in an Indian city, and it’s right up there with Zomato and Paytm in the Indian startup ecosystem. Buoyed by initial success, Ola zoomed ahead towards aggressive expansion into food delivery, used car retail and quick commerce. This year, it had to scale down its food business, and shut down Ola Car as well as Ola Dash, before postponing its IPO. Now the firm is reportedly planning to lay off 500 employees, working across different software teams.

EV expansion going up in smoke

The downsizing comes at a time when Ola’s electric scooter sales are constantly falling every month, and it plans to scale up hiring for strengthening that business. The startup is already under fire for its EVs going up in flames in the middle of the road on several occasions, and had to recall 1400 e-scooters. Ola has also launched 20 retail stores across India in a bid to increase its sales by providing a better customer experience.

The e-scooter business which was launched in December, saw another downfall of more than 11 per cent in sales for August. Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal was also trolled by netizens who asked for fire extinguishers with e-scooters, when he sought suggestions on Twitter.

Bit more than they can chew?

It has already laid off 2000 employees this year after shutting down used car business Ola Car and quick commerce platform Ola Dash. This came months after the platform was touted to evolve into a super app. Its ride-hailing service has also been hit by hundreds of complaints in Bengaluru alone, accusing Ola of charging exorbitant rates for rides. As for the food business, Ola was reportedly selling kitchen equipment at a 50 per cent discount, after plans to integrate it with 10-minute grocery delivery.

Since the pandemic struck, 30 senior members of Bhavish Aggarwal’s own leadership team have also resigned. Although there’s no clarity on layoffs, Ola has revealed plans to increase the number of engineers in the firm from 2000 to 5000.