With sales of his electric two-wheeler declining, Ride-Hailing is Major Ola Reportedly laid off nearly 500 employees in another round, this time from its various software verticals from ANI Technologies operating at Ola Taxis.
CNBC first reported on Monday that several of the employees laid off as part of the “restructuring” were working on the Ola app.
Run by Bhavish Aggarwal, the company employed nearly 1,100 people in its core ride-hailing business.
Although Ola did not comment on the layoff of 500 employees from its software divisions, it did say so in a statement Ola Electr has increased its focus on non-software engineering domains with a clear focus on building technology and R&D capabilities across vehicle, cell, battery, manufacturing and automation, autonomous engineering streams.
“The company currently has approximately 2,000 engineers and intends to increase its engineering talent pool to 5,000 over the next 18 months. In light of these efforts, the company is centralizing its operations and undertaking a reorganization to minimize redundancies and build a strong lateral structure that strengthens relevant roles and functions,” the company said.
Previous restructuring impacted employees across the company’s product, marketing, sales, supply, engineering, business and operations functions, affecting more than 1,000 employees.
However, according to sources, these layoffs affected fewer than 500 employees, rather than 1,000, and “were the result of a reorganization at the Cars and Dash divisions.”
The ride-hailing major recently shut down its used car business Ola carsas well as its Quick Commerce business, Ola Dashas the company shifted focus to its electric two-wheeler and auto vertical.
Recently, Ola Electric’s Head of Advanced Battery Engineering, Ashok Saraswatwent on.
Saraswat, who joined Ola, which is backed by SoftBank last year, is reportedly joining a company that is getting into the battery business.
More than half a dozen senior executives have left Ola Electric in the past few months, while over 30 senior executives have left Ola in the past two years.
Ola Electric’s sales are down and it sold 3,421 EV two-wheelers in August, down from 3,862 units the company sold in July, suggesting it has yet to get its overall strategy on track.
A recent report found that just 1 percent of household consumers plan to buy an e-scooter in the next six months due to safety and performance concerns as the government investigates multiple electric two-wheeler fires.
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