Ola's Foray into Mapping Technology Challenges Google's Dominance in India

Mint Explainer: Ola Maps, MapMyIndia, Google and the nationalism conundrum

New Delhi: On 8 July, Bhavish Aggarwal, cofounder of ANI Technologies, the parent of ride-hailing platform Olacabs, electric vehicle firm Ola Electric and AI upstart Krutrim, announced Ola Maps on social media platform X. Aggarwal claimed that the product "outperformed competitors on location, search and arrival time accuracy, as well as search latency." Three weeks and some amount of ruckus later, Aggarwal's Ola Maps found itself at the receiving end of a legal notice even as he went after global mapping market leader Google with undertones of nationalism and big promises of subsidized pricing. Mint breaks down the issues that have fuelled this controversy. The Ola Maps controversy raises multiple issues. It has highlighted the plight of startups looking to take on Google's massive might, which not only dominates Maps but also accounts for over 90% of smartphones in the country. It also brings to the fore a dispute around how Ola Maps was built -- with MapMyIndia claiming that the Ola Maps product violated copyrighted material owned by the former, including proprietary data and features. These factors were subsequently elaborated in a notice to Ola on 29 July. The notice in question was served by CE Info Systems Ltd, the publicly listed parent firm of homegrown mapping firm, MapMyIndia. While the veracity of the claims is yet to be proven, the notice in question has raised a number of key points in conversations around mapping products and their recent claims. The notice from MapMyIndia to Ola Maps said, "Our client's exclusive data has been copied or derived by you to further your illegal motive and for your unjust commercial gains. Your assertion that you have developed an API (application programming interface) and map data for Ola Maps solely through open maps is factually incorrect and not tenable." "By indulging in such unscrupulous and illegal activities, you have acted in blatant defiance of the terms and conditions of the agreement, and have further infringed the copyright vested exclusively in our client, pertaining to the source code," the notice added. Ola Maps has, for now, denied all allegations. However, the entire incident has raised questions about Aggarwal's nationalistic rhetoric. The executive, whose company Ola Electric's initial public offering (IPO) opened Friday, has been vocal about using narratives with nationalistic undertones. He claims to have "exited" Microsoft's Azure cloud platform, and is also building what he has claimed to be an India-focused foundational model, Krutrim. "We've been using western apps to map India for too long and they don't get our unique challenges: street names, urban changes, complex traffic, non-standard roads etc. Ola Maps tackles these with AI-powered India-specific algorithms, real-time data from millions of vehicles, leveraging and contributing massively to open source (5 million+ edits just last year!)," Aggarwal tweeted on 8 July. Three senior executives working across the technology industry and aware of Ola's new Maps platform told Mint on conditions of anonymity that Aggarwal would have fared better by focusing solely on building a custom mapping layer for his company, rather than taking what has been described as an "us versus them" approach. "By the looks of it, what Ola appears to have done is use the Open-Source Maps (OSM) application interface to build a custom mapping product for its mobility services. There's nothing wrong with this -- absolutely anyone can take an open-source product and build on top of it," one of the executives cited above said. "What doesn't seem right is that one of India's most prominent startup founders is using his credibility and equity to simply push a nationalistic narrative on his products -- instead of focusing just on his products and offering tangible proof of innovation to those who question him and his venture," the person added. To be sure, Aggarwal is not necessarily wrong in his move. Even if Ola's products were developed as open-source, there's no real fault in doing so, said a veteran industry consultant, who also requested anonymity due to conflict of interest. "By definition, open-source software lets developers take the platform as a base, and build custom products on top of it. They can even apply for a copyright on a product built on top of an open-source base, as long as they can prove that their custom innovation is worthy of copyright protection," the consultant added. But, the concerns are around claims of portraying divisive innovation from a spotlight-happy chief executive. Meanwhile, the IPO of Ola Electric has seen the company's valuation being slashed by 25%, down to $4 billion, from $5.4 billion at its last private funding round of $140 million led by Temasek in September last year. Despite this decline in valuation, Ola's IPO is expected to be the biggest of this year, with the company expected to raise $734 million through the offer. Despite Ola's market leadership in two-wheelers, the company is yet to be profitable. In FY24, Ola Electric narrowed its losses to $124.2 million ( ₹1,040.2 crore). There are concerns about the company, too. "Ola Electric's high labour attrition rate poses significant challenges to its operations and growth. A high turnover rate can disrupt production processes, hinder knowledge transfer, and negatively impact employee morale," Sonam Shrivastava, founder and fund manager at Wright Research told Mint. This controversy raises two fundamental questions: One, whether Aggarwal's Ola has indeed borrowed data from a potential rival, and two, why an 'Indian' map is necessary. For the first, Aggarwal has denied all allegations -- even suggesting that mapping isn't a business avenue for Ola to focus on. At a pre-IPO press conference on Wednesday, Aggarwal said about MapMyIndia's notice: "It was very opportunistic of them. Ola is not in the Maps business. We will respond to them at the right time." Rohan Verma, chief executive of MapMyIndia, declined to comment on the matter, stating that the company will only speak publicly when there is more clarity. As for the second question, it's important to understand where we stand today. Google Maps is estimated to account for over 80% of the entire mapping market in India -- including automotive maps. On mobile phones, this share is well above 95%, as per industry sources. Even without taking the rights and wrongs into account, competition should be beneficial in any industry. Google, on this note, has also reduced its pricing for enterprise access to the Google Maps platform. The latter claimed, in a blog post, that effective pricing for its products were lowered by up to 70%. Aggarwal, in a tweet on 17 July suggested that Google's pricing revision was in response to the unveiling of the Ola Maps platform -- a statement that appears to be in contradiction to what he said at Wednesday's pre-IPO press conference. Following up with a further tweet on 18 July, Aggarwal extensively announced a lowered pricing structure for Ola Maps -- which includes multiple years of free access to this mapping platform for any enterprise. However, each of the executives cited above said that unless Ola publishes a transparent set of details on its mapping development, data collection and collation process, algorithms and logic, and more for third-party scrutiny, the service is unlikely to draw tangible and profitable enterprise eyeballs. The veteran consultant cited above, on this note, further added, "Google Maps was not built in a day. MapMyIndia, too, has been going after Google with its nationalist rhetoric for a while -- but that hasn't moved the needle enough to particularly concern Google. For the most part, Google's mapping services have become ubiquitous in the country." What, therefore, remains unanswered is the objective behind such a move: if Ola is "not in the maps business", what good does all the nationalist rhetoric do for the brand?

Location wars: How a newly liberalised sector in India is hotting up

The liberalised geospatial policy in India has spurred intense competition in the mapping industry, with local firms like Ola and MapMyIndia taking on Google Maps. These changes have unlocked significant market potential, encouraging innovation and price cuts. The policy shift enables Indian companies to operate more freely, promising growth and new opportunities for various sectors.Nearly two years after India opened up an insular and heavily regulated sector to private companies, it has become hyperactive. India's map industry, which was largely a domain of the government, is now a hotly contested field. A few weeks ago, Google, which has become synonymous with maps, thanks to the ubiquity of Google Maps mobile app, announced that it is introducing India-specific pricing for developers using the Google Maps platform with up to 70% lower costs on most APIs. Later, Google announced a slew of new features on Google Maps to woo Indian users, including EV charging station information, flyover callouts and AI-driven routing capability to reduce narrow road usage for four-wheeler drivers. It is "an exciting time in mapping", Google Maps said announcing the new lineup What changed? After the government's liberalised geospatial policy, local rivals are now giving stiff competition to global major Google. Not so long ago, maps used to be seen as an academic or government thing. Today, maps have emerged as valuable data with huge commercial potential. From agriculture to mining to doorstep delivery, various industries now use maps as a key business asset. That's why India is witnessing map wars. Google announced price cuts after Ola rolled out Ola Maps, the digital mapping solution created using proprietary and open data including real-time data of the Ola fleet and open-source government data repositories, OpenStreetMaps. Ola founder Bhavish Aggarwal announced a one-year free access to all developers to shift to Ola Maps on artificial intelligence (AI)-driven Krutrim platform, along with more than Rs 100 crore in free credits. On July 6, Ola said it had exited Google Maps and shifted to its in-house navigation system for its cab operations. The move has reportedly saved the company nearly Rs 100 crore a year. Slamming Google's "belated" price cuts, Aggarwal responded with a more aggressive price cut for Ola Maps. "It's time we build world class alternatives to big tech giants and empower Indian innovation! I'm very excited to announce a further reduced pricing structure and our future product roadmap for Ola Maps @Krutrim," he wrote on X. A few days ago, homegrown digital mapping services company MapMyIndia, a chief rival of Google Maps, sued Ola for allegedly stealing its data and breaching the license agreement to create Ola Maps, according to reports. CE Info Systems, the parent company of MapMyIndia, which had provided services to Ola, has said that the latter has "copied" MapMyIndia's proprietary data by co-mingling and reverse engineering the licensed product. Ola Electric has dismissed the claims made by CE Info Systems. "We would like to state unequivocally that these allegations are false, malicious and misleading. Ola Electric stands by the integrity of its business practices. We will suitably respond to the notice shortly," a company spokesperson said in a statement. Intense competition among private players for maps shows their core utility for a wide range of businesses and thus a vast potential for commercial gains. In addition to Ola, India's own mapping companies such as MapmyIndia, Genesys International and RMSI - to name a few - are taking on Google, aided in part by a new policy that gave Indian companies a definite edge. It all changed about two years ago when the government notified the National Geospatial Policy which liberalised regulations that applied to acquisition and production of geospatial data and services -- including surveying and mapping -- enabling Indian private firms to work without prior approvals. It unlocked tremendous opportunities for startups and the private sector in sectors such as e-commerce, delivery, logistics, Internet of Things (IoT), banking and financial services, emergency services, urban transport, agriculture and autonomous drones and vehicles. Earlier, the government imposed significant restrictions on the mapping industry, requiring companies to seek licenses and follow a cumbersome system of pre-approvals and permissions. Due to restrictions, even the Survey of India, a government agency, had to take a series of permissions for its own work and its projects would get stuck for months. The policy restricted foreign entities from doing ground survey and mapping. There are a lot of accuracy and depth reductions in maps produced by foreign players. They are also restricted from collecting, processing, publishing and hosting high accuracy/high-definition maps like 360-degree street view on their servers, while Indian entities are allowed to do so. International companies that capture data about India through satellite-based operations can continue to do so. The advantage for Indian companies is that any geospatial data of spatial accuracy/value finer than the threshold value of one metre horizontally, and three metres vertically can be collected only by entities controlled by Indian citizens. Foreign companies can use that data but only by subscribing to it through APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) from Indian companies. As per the government, India's geospatial economy is expected to provide employment to more than 10 lakh people mainly through private geospatial companies. India's geospatial market, including domestic and exports, is estimated to be worth approximately Rs 27,650 crore in 2025, rising from Rs 22,940 crore in 2019. The sector is expected to grow to Rs 63,000 crore by 2030, as per a Geospatial-Artha report.