Bengaluru: Ride hailing service Ola (ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd) has rolled out it’s so-called connected car service Ola Play in Hyderabad, the fourth city to get the service after Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore, the company said in a statement on Monday.

“Ola is defining the future of ridesharing with cutting edge innovations from India. We believe this will enhance the future of automobiles and the mobility experience for millions in the time to come for both customers and driver partners. With Ola Play, we have brought onboard some of the leading international and national content and technology partners to build a platform that is highly interactive, contextual and intelligent, to offer a truly connected ride sharing experience to our customers,"Ankit Jain, senior director and head of Ola Play said in a statement.

Last November, Ola had launched Ola Play for subscribers to the Select service, which is essentially a subscription-based privilege programme where subscribers are not subjected to surge pricing, get preferential booking for cabs and discounted rates, among others.

In January this year, the company rolled out Ola Play to all consumers who choose to avail of sedans under the Prime category.

Jain said in an interview in January that since the launch of Play, Select subscriptions witnessed a 300% increase.

Ola Play allows consumers to access personalized content such as music, movies, shopping and also lets them control the air-conditioning through tablets. The company will incur a cost of Rs20,000-30,000 per cab, Mint reported in November.

The company has partnered with the likes of Apple Music, Sony LIV, All India Bakchod, The Viral Fever, Audio Compass and Fynd for content and shopping experience.

Ola aims to facilitate about half of all rides for the company on a Play enabled-car before the end of this year.

Ola has not yet rolled out Play for all categories of cabs, including the low-cost variants Ola Micro and Mini.

Interestingly, according to several industry experts and executives, the low-cost variants for Ola, Micro and Mini, and UberGO, the San Fransisco-headquartered rival’s low cost offering, account for about 75% of their overall rides.

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