Future of mobility in India

Abstract

Mobility industry is facing the blunt of global Pandemic and operating in extremely variable business environment. Before COVID-19, shared mobility was gaining traction in India. It was observed that 50% of millennials earlier questioned the need to own a vehicle, while consumers in India felt empowered trusting the power of digital solutions that made their commute safer. But now future of shared mobility in a post COVID era looks a bit blurry. Mobility players are witnessing a slow increase ridership in major cities across the world, and the operators are burdened with uncertainty and the potential need to implement and control strict hygiene protocols—such as compulsory face masks and health checks for passengers, or restricting the number of riders in cabs. There is also loss of confidence on users end about safety and security of such shared mobility solutions. In this report, we have defined shared mobility and its different kind of services ranging from ride hailing to car rentals and how the same has been used across different cities in India. We have also conducted Industry attractiveness test by figuring out various market forces and concluded that Shared mobility industry looks moderately unattractive. In India, Shared mobility industry is expected to become $ 3.4 Bn market by year 2024 and factors for such exponential growth varies from increased traffic congestion to growing environment concerns. To understand the response of the different players from the different industry expert interviews was conducted with OEM manufacturing and shared mobility players. This gave a better correlation of our analysis with the secondary data. The interviews were focused on four parts: 1). Objective and role of the player in the Indian Mobility sector and their offerings 2). Describing the Impact of COVID19 on their operations and offerings 3). Comparison on the pre COVID19 and post COVID19 business outlook 4). Future outlook from the Industry perspective and the response by the player. Shared mobility in India was at the nascent stage in the pre COVID19 phase and it was gain attraction at a slower rate. Though the pandemic did stop the operations of the mobility players for one quarter, the demand for the shared mobility services and booking for new private vehicles has started to raise back. Therefore in a long run the impact of COVID 19 on the shared mobility can be perceived to be a small blip rather than a source for radical change.