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Rapido faced a technical glitch today leaving many users unable to book rides as the platform struggled to process new requests

The disruption pushed some users towards rival Uber, where they claimed fares were two to three times higher

Inc42’s checks also found that the app was unable to fetch rides in some cases, while some users were stuck on screens displaying previous bookings

Update | August 27, 8:02 pm IST

Quick’s app outage was short lived, lasting about an hour.  Consumers were able to book rides on the platform around 8 PM, making the disruption last about one hour. In a statement, the startup attributed the outage to a technical issue.

“Earlier today, some users experienced a brief technical issue while booking rides on the Rapido platform. Our internal teams identified and resolved the issue promptly, and all services have since been fully restored. We regret any inconvenience caused and thank our users for their continued trust and patience,” said a Rapido spokesperson.

Original | August 27, 7:11 PM IST

Ride-hailing major Rapido is facing a technical glitch currently, leaving many users unable to book rides as the platform struggles to process new requests.

Several users took to X to flag problems with the app, with some saying that they were forced to turn to Uber, where fares were substantially higher.

“Today is the first day I am going out in a wholeeeee to meet people and Rapido is down. Uber is charging 3X and I can’t drive atm,” one user posted on X.

Another user wrote, “Rapido server is down. Uber charging 2X fare.”

Other users also reported that the app had stopped responding, with one saying the screen remained frozen on a previous ride and did not allow making a new booking.

Inc42’s checks also found that Rapido was unable to fetch rides in some cases, while the app remained frozen on screens displaying previous bookings for some users.

The scale of the apparent outage and the number of users affected remain unclear.

This is not the first time that Rapido has been hit by an outage in the past year. In December last year, the ride-hailing platform also went offline for users across multiple cities including Delhi NCR, Bengaluru and Kolkata.

The outage came amid a broader trend of recurring tech disruptions across consumer internet and digital infrastructure platforms in India. Over the past year, several high-traffic platforms have faced temporary outages due to server failures, traffic spikes, network capacity shortfalls or third-party infrastructure issues.

Most recently in April this year, OpenAI faced a partial outage that impacted operations of its chatbot, ChatGPT, and agentic coding platform Codex and API platform. Prior to this in January, social media platform X also suffered another outage, which left thousands of users across the globe facing issues in accessing its website and app.

The outage at Rapido left many scrambling for rides and exposed the duopolistic nature of the mobility ecosystem. Rapido and Uber are the two biggest players in the Indian ride-hailing space and enjoy the bulk of volume in the space.

Rapido alone accounts for nearly half of India’s ride-hailing volumes, according to industry estimates. It commands at least 60% market share in the bike taxi segment and a 20%-30% share of the four-wheeler cab segment.

While VinFast-backed Green SM and state-backed Bharat Taxi and trying to establish a foothold, early entrant Ola appears to have been relegated to the margins. At the heart of all this is the Indian ride-hailing services market, which is projected to become a $11 Bn market by 2033.