DBT Bureau
Bengaluru, 30 July 2024
MapMyIndia, a home-grown digital navigation firm, has sued Ola Electric accusing the EV player of allegedly breaching the license agreement to create Ola Maps, reports said.
According to a legal document, accessed by Forbes India, MapMyIndia has accused Ola Electric of duplicating API and SDKs, co-mingling, and reverse engineering licensed products, which is prohibited under the terms of their agreement signed in June 2021.
“You have duplicated our client’s API and SDKs from proprietary sources belonging to our client to build Ola Maps. It is firmly stated that our client’s exclusive data has been copied/derived by you to further your illegal motive and for your unjust commercial gains,” reads the legal document from CE Info Systems, the parent company of MapMyIndia as per reports.
Recently, OLA has launched OLA Maps, which has emerged as a challenger to Google Maps’ near dominance in the Indian market. MapMyIndia’s flagship product ‘Mappls’ uses Google Maps. Ola Group companies have transitioned to Ola Maps replacing Google Maps.
“After Azure exit last month, we’ve now fully exited Google Maps. We used to spend ₹100 cr a year but we’ve made that 0 this month by moving completely to our in house Ola maps! Check your Ola app and update if needed,” Aggarwal has said in a ‘X’ post. “Also, Ola maps API is available on @Krutrim cloud! Many more features coming soon – street view, NERFs, indoor images, 3D maps, drone maps etc!,” Ola Group Founder, Bhavish Aggarwal has said in social media platform ‘X’.
This has raised the possibility of MapMyIndia’s market share loss in Indian market. “Though OLA two-wheelers still offer a choice of MapMyIndia maps to its customers, a certain market share loss due to this development cannot be ruled out,” JM Financial said in a note last month.
Meanwhile, Ola Electric has launched its IPO and is looking to raise up to Rs 5,500 crore in fresh share sale. The IPO will open on August 2 for subscription.
The share price of MapMyIndia is trading at 2.10% higher at Rs 2,407.55 in early trade on Tuesday in NSE.
