Average age to own car up, says Ola co-founder
Vijay C Roy
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, February 2
As affordable cabs are easily available 24X7 in urban cities, buying an own car doesn’t make sense for millennials. Bhavish Aggarwal, co-founder, Ola Cabs, says the ownership of car is getting delayed. In other words, the average age to buy a car has gone up.
“I don’t own a car. Even my younger brother doesn’t have one. The average age of my employees is around 26 years and they also don’t own cars. Around 10 years ago, people of this age group used to have a car. So with the advent of app-based taxi service, the ownership of car is being delayed,” said Aggarwal on the sidelines of Asia Economic Dialogue, which concluded in Pune yesterday.
He said it doesn’t mean people have stopped buying cars but they have delayed their decision. “Suppose you have a family, you buy a car for their safety and it is more need-based. Secondly, if a person already owns a car, he won’t think of buying a second car but will rely on shared mobility,” he added.
Also, there is another set of people who need a car for pleasure to drive. “So, its right to say the sale of automobiles has slumped mainly because of app-based taxi service,” he said.
In September last year, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said millennials were no longer buying cars as Ola and Uber have become more affordable. She was responding to queries on slowdown in the automobile sector.
In other words, users of app-based taxis would ordinarily be potential car buyers. But with income and career uncertainties, many “millennials” prefer to avoid financial commitment of car ownership, according to the Finance Minister.
However, experts said the slump in car demand was not just because of app-based taxis only. Other factors responsible for the sluggish demand include general economic slowdown, NBFCs crisis as it affected financing options and choice of many potential buyers to wait for BS-VI-compliant cars, which are mandatory from April 1.
Aggarwal said Indian mobility depends on multi models rather than just cars. “More miles are being covered by two-wheelers and three-wheelers rather than cars,” he said.
He also announced that in next couple of years, Ola will be listed on the Indian stock market.
On launching taxi service in London, he said, “The Indian mindset of working with regulators has been helpful while going global. London has one of the most proactive and progressive regulators for the transport mobility. It was natural for us to collaborate with the regulators rather than disrupting the market. An Indian company doesn’t think about disruption as there is not much of legacy investment or legacy infrastructure. We have a co-creation mindset.”
