BENGALURU: Ride-hailing startup Ola saw its losses double to Rs 1,760 crore at the end of March 2016 as the homegrown player fights an intense battle with Uber to win the India market, according to filings made to the registrar of companies.

Ola had reported a net loss of Rs 754 crore in the year ending March 2015. The SoftBank-backed company's total revenue stood at Rs 664 crore compared with Rs 100.32 crore, a year ago period.

ANI Technologies, which runs Ola, also saw its expenses for advertising and sales promotion increasing almost four-fold to Rs 385 crore in fiscal year 2016 compared with Rs 100 crore a year ago. These expenses are primarily towards brand building and costs incurred on customer acquisition that builds and enhances the market share of the company, Ola said in its filing sourced from the business research platform Tofler.

Ola's income from commissions that it charges from the drivers on its platform grew five times at Rs 325.41 crore at the end of March 2016. The company claims to have more than 70% of share of the taxi app market in the country. While Ola commands a higher market share than Uber, both the companies have been spending cash in discounting ride fares during the period under review to acquire customers and strengthen their foothold in the market.

Overall expenses for Ola's staffers jumped by over five times at Rs 379 core. The cab aggregator has been cutting down on its monthly burn rate by lowering driver incentives just like Uber. To mainta in its lead over Uber, it has been launching multiple products like Share, Shuttle, Micro, a membership programme Select.

An email sent to an Ola spokesperson did not elicit a response. TOI reported in its April14 edition that taxi aggregator received Rs 1,675 crore in fresh funding from its existing investor SoftBank at a lower valuation of $3 billion. Prior to this, it had raised $500 million in November 2015 at a valuation of $5 billion. According to sources,the company may extend this round to accommodate new investors.

Founded by Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati in 2010, Ola claims to be clocking an average 1 million rides per day while Uber has publicly dismissed Ola's claims saying it's registering 5.5 million rides weekly making India its second largest market. Apart from SoftBank, Ola counts Chinese ride-hailing major Didi Chuxing, DST Global, Tiger Global as its investors.

