Rapido’s flat-fee – Rapido, a Bengaluru-based ride-hailing startup, has surged in India with more than 70 million monthly active users and nearly 3 million drivers—using a two-wheeler-first strategy and flat daily fees for drivers. Uber, which entered India in 2013, is facing a “
For Uber, India is not just another expansion market—it’s a “must-win.” And the pressure is coming from a rival that looks unlikely on paper: Rapido, a Bengaluru startup with no presence or brand awareness in North America, built with a fraction of Uber’s global workforce.
In India, Rapido has moved from challenger to a primary ride-hailing force. The company says it has more than 70 million monthly active users and nearly 3 million drivers, numbers that place Uber and Ola on notice in the region’s most price-sensitive travel market.
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has already acknowledged the shift. “Ola used to be our main competitor,” he said on Nikhil Kamath’s podcast last year. “I see now that the tougher competition in India is Rapido.”
Rapido’s leadership argues that the reason is straightforward: it built its product and economics around how people actually move in India—especially on two-wheelers and auto-rickshaws.
Rapido CEO and cofounder Aravind Sanka told Business Insider that the company’s advantage came from prioritizing local realities. He said Rapido focused on two-wheelers and auto-rickshaws instead of traditional cars. and adopted a different driver economics model in a country where riders are highly price sensitive.
From Rapido’s viewpoint, affordability isn’t a side feature. Sanka described the pricing hierarchy in India this way: a four-wheeler is the most premium option. while a two-wheeler and three-wheeler are the most affordable. “We knew that India is a price-sensitive market and affordability has to be the key for ride-sharing compared to premium. ” Sanka said.
That focus began years earlier than most observers might expect. Uber entered India in 2013, two years before Rapido was founded. Rapido launched with a different approach: Sanka said the company spent the first six years building its app around the two-wheeled platform before expanding into auto-rickshaws and cars.
The business consequences of that choice show up in how the company operates day to day. Sanka said the average cost of a two-wheeled ride is 60 to 70 cents, and that bikes and three-wheelers make up about 70% of total rides. That mix, he said, forces Rapido to run a lower-cost structure.
Rapido also changed how it earns money from drivers—called “captains” within the app. Instead of taking a commission on each ride, Rapido charges a flat daily fee, regardless of how much a driver earns per ride. Sanka said that model helped bring more drivers online.
The scale of that driver growth is one of the clearest signals of Rapido’s momentum. Rapido says it has nearly 3 million drivers on the app—up from 1 million about two-and-a-half years ago. Uber’s head of India operations, Prabhjeet Singh, said last July that Uber had about 1.4 million drivers.
Even with the leap in usage, Rapido’s workforce is far smaller than Uber’s. Sanka said Rapido has roughly 800 employees, dwarfed by Uber’s 34,000-strong global workforce. An Uber spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
The financial picture still carries pressure. Rapido is not profitable yet, though its losses are shrinking. The Economic Times reported, citing financial documents filed with India’s Registrar of Companies, that Rapido’s operating revenue rose 44% in fiscal 2025, while its net loss narrowed 30%.
What makes the contest more urgent is not just who’s winning today—it’s how much room there is to grow. Though India is one of the world’s most populous countries, Sanka estimated that less than 5% of its population uses ride-hailing.
With penetration still low and growth fast, Rapido’s leadership doesn’t believe consolidation is the answer right now. Sanka said a merger or consolidation with Uber is not in the cards at the moment. “When penetration is low. and it is growing fast. that means the positions can change at any point in time. ” he said. “There’s no point of thinking about any kind of consolidation.”.
Rapido’s rise is therefore less about replacing Uber’s network overnight and more about changing the terms of competition—built around affordability. a two-wheeler and three-wheeler reality. and a driver model designed to scale without the same commission structure. In a market Uber’s CEO has called “must-win,” the challenge is proving difficult to ignore.
Uber Rapido India ride-hailing Ola Dara Khosrowshahi Aravind Sanka Prabhjeet Singh two-wheeler auto-rickshaw drivers captains monthly active users fiscal 2025 operating revenue net loss Registrar of Companies