Beyond Bike Taxi: Rapido's High-Stakes Pivot

New bets in food delivery, cabs, carpooling, and even fintech promise fresh lifelines. But, it's complicated

- Sakshi Sadashiv

These days, Rajesh, who used to be a bike-taxi rider with Rapido, no longer ferries passengers across Bengaluru. With the two-wheeler service being declared illegal, he, like other Rapido riders, has switched to food delivery, a play Rapido is testing with its newly launched Ownly service.

"I do this at night while attending college in the morning," Rajesh adds. "I use the same bike—it's convenient, and the extra cash helps cover my expenses."

He is unsure if Rapido will be able to break the Swiggy-Zomato duopoly, which has a stranglehold over the food delivery business. "Who knows if they'll crack it. If not, we'll just have to switch to Swiggy or Zomato," says Rajesh, as he waits for his phone to ping in the city's upmarket Koramangala locality.

Industry executives estimate that Rapido commands roughly 60% of India's bike taxi market. But in two of its largest markets, Karnataka and Maharashtra, the rules governing bike taxis have become stringent.

Karnataka's blanket ban landed in June, cutting Rapido, operated by Roppen Transportation Services Pvt. Ltd, off at the knees in one of its most important markets. The state accounts for 5 million of the 26 million monthly rides nationwide, according to Nikhil Dhaka, vice president at Primus Partners, a management consulting firm in Delhi.

"A ban in just one state, Karnataka, could shrink the total bike taxi usage in India by nearly one-fourth," he says.

To the west, Maharashtra has been more accommodating, but with a catch: bike taxis are permitted only if they're electric. For riders on budget petrol two-wheelers, that caveat offers little relief.