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“We are introducing a nationwide brand around our mobility service, called Alyte, this quarter,” Rampraveen Swaminathan, CEO, Mahindra Logistics, told
ET in an interview.
Alyte, run under Mahindra Logistics; Meru Cabs, in which Mahindra group owns 55%; etaxi service Glyd; and First Choice, M&M’s used car business, will be housed under the new mobility services vertical.
M&M plans to roll out a mobile application for Alyte in the next month. It will work on the basis of contracts with companies — ferrying employees to and from workplaces to homes, warehouses or meetings.
It will later diversify into an on-call service for corporates, allowing their employees to book a seat for airport drops, and other services. The app will work by punching in employee IDs or other account details.
TOUGH ROAD AHEAD
Alyte will put Mahindra into direct competition with Ola — through Ola Corporate’s significant presence — as well as Uber, which has entered more recently through Uber for Business. Over 10,000 companies across 22 different industries work with Ola Corporate.
Uber during its IPO prospectus last year, said it got 1% of its global revenue from Uber for Business. Alyte, though, will be a business-to-business application and work through corporate tieups and not a public business-to-customer application such as Uber and Ola.
While Mahindra plans to tie up with cab aggregators, it is also working on a scheme to help drivers get good deals from auto makers as well as vehicle financers. Mahindra also plans a “significant” investment in electric vehicles (EV) for Alyte, said Swaminathan. Mahindra currently has a leased fleet of 100, which it plans to increase five times by March 2021, he said, seeing as multinational companies have started to treat environmental sustainability as a priority.
Uber plans to quadruple its electric vehicles fleet in India by the end of 2020,
ET had reported earlier this week. Most mobility platforms, including Ola’s electric arm, Bounce, Vogo, Yulu, as well as auto makers such as like Bajaj, Hero and Tata Motors are sharpening focus on electric mobility. Ola Electric is also running pilot electric mobility projects in Gurgaon, Bengaluru and Nagpur.
Swaminathan said 30% of Alyte’s fleet in three to four years will be electric. He did not share any more details.
In December, non-executive chairman Anand Mahindra had made a reference to the new sector, called mobility services.
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