Mr. Rohrsheim said that Uber had added incentives of its own last year, including paid wait time and a “no thanks” button that lets drivers refuse up to three rides in a row.

“Uber isn’t Uber without driver partners,” he said, “and our success depends on their success.”

Ola’s discounted commission has helped the company sign up 7,000 drivers so far. That is nowhere near the roughly 82,000 who drive for Uber, but more than double what Taxify started with in Sydney in December. Taxify did not respond to requests for comment.

Many of the new Ola drivers help spread the word about the company. Cecilia Cornu, an Ola customer in Perth, first heard about the service when she asked an Uber driver about the two cellphones he had. One, he said, was for Ola.

Image An Uber driver’s phone shows the company’s surge pricing in effect one day this month. Drivers who work for Ola and Uber said the Indian company’s prices made it appealing to riders when Uber is in surge mode. Credit... David Maurice Smith for The New York Times

“He told me my ride would have been cheaper if I had booked it through Ola, as they were running a promotion with free rides,” she said.

“As soon as I got to work,” she added, “I downloaded the Ola app.”

Ola has not explicitly marketed itself to drivers or riders of Indian origin, but the company does expect that the awareness of its brand among Indians will help. About 1.9 percent of Australia’s population of 24 million was born in India, according to 2016 census data; many more are the children of Indian immigrants.

The Ola app still signals that connection: India sometimes shows up as the default country when someone in Australia signs up and adds his mobile phone number.