Ola Electric struggles to stem declining revenue, worsening unit economics
Bhavish Aggarwal-led Ola Electric Mobility Ltd saw its revenue decline for the eighth consecutive quarter, while its operating profit margin, excluding depreciation and amortization, worsened year-on-year in the September quarter as the electric two-wheeler maker struggled to keep pace with rivals.
The Bengaluru-based company reported a 39% on-year decline in revenue to ₹421 crore while losses shrank to ₹362 crore from ₹418 crore a year ago in the second quarter of fiscal year 2026-27 (FY27). Its reported adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (Ebitda) margins worsened from -42.8% in the year-ago period to -58.5%.
The deterioration in unit economics came as rival Ather Energy Ltd reported its first-ever net profit, while Pune-based Bajaj Auto Ltd said its electric two-wheeler business was contributing double-digit positive Ebitda.
Bengaluru-based Ather recorded a profit after tax of ₹1.26 crore during the September quarter as against a loss of ₹154 crore in the year-ago quarter. Revenue surged 63% to ₹1,526 crore. Its Ebitda margin was at 4.9% as against -9.6% a year ago.
Ola Electric is now banking on expanding its dealership network to 700 stores by the end of March, up from 319 currently, and on revenue from its cell business to recover in the upcoming quarters. It expects about 20,000 wholesale orders in December, rising from 3,955 orders in September. The company has also closed all its stores, according to its disclosures.
Moreover, it has installed 6GWh capacity for its cell plant with an eye on ramping up the utilization of the plant to start booking revenue, which will largely come from its own auto business as Ola’s scooters and motorcycles will use in-house cells.
“Both the businesses, the EV business and cell industry, are now seeing very strong macro pull. And we are in both,” Aggarwal said during the company’s earnings call on Thursday evening, expressing hope that the numbers will improve.
“Business has stabilized. The balance sheet has stabilized. Operations have stabilized. And we are looking very optimistically into the next year to see really ramp up growth in a very sustainable margin accretive way,” Aggarwal added.
Ola Electric has raised about ₹1,000 crore through a rights issue and ₹780 crore through a qualified institutional placement this year, which has helped the company pare down the debt on its books.
Its total borrowing has come down from ₹3,132 crore in December 2024 to ₹1,819 crore in September 2026, showed its data.
While the company is looking to make a comeback with a 300-kilometre-range product from the March quarter of the current fiscal year, it is facing a challenge from rivals TVS Motor Co. Ltd, Bajaj Auto, Ather Energy and Hero MotoCorp Ltd, who have ramped up their own expansion.
The government’s Vahan portal data for 2026 showed that Ola Electric has registered 122,890 units, while its closest rival in the space, Hero MotoCorp, has registered 213,372. Ather’s 306,012, Bajaj’s 420,857, and TVS’s 492,424 unit registrations reflect the scale of the challenge for Ola Electric ahead as it tries to wrest back market share.
Its management noted on the earnings call that scooter production is ramping up as dealers place repeat orders and report market share gains in certain markets.
“Channel inventory is only about 15 days, and in many markets where our dealers opened early and have stabilized we have actually experienced market share going up well above where we were before the transition,” Deepak Rastogi, chief financial officer at Ola Electric, said during the call.
The company's recovery efforts are being closely monitored as its share price remains less than half the price at which it listed in August 2024. On Thursday, its shares closed up 3.8%, compared with a 1% decline in the Nifty Auto.
Ayaan Kartik is a Delhi-based journalist tracking the ever-growing world of automobiles and their components. With an experience of five years ranging from short-form news at Inshorts to longform journalism at Outlook Business magazine, he has dabbled into different storytelling formats. At Mint, he tries to regularly mix story styles, from longforms to crisp news stories. He has completed his graduation from Delhi University where he developed a liking for reading and writing about the world we live in today. Apart from automobiles, Ayaan likes to read up on geopolitics which has increasingly affected various sectors of the economy. Of all the promises journalism holds, he likes the fact that it allows a person to simply explain to readers about what is happening in the world. And what better sector than automobiles, which everyone since growing up has seen and felt connected to. Whether it is China's increasing grip on automobiles to growing affection for EVs in the country, Ayaan likes to connect his love for geopolitics and data to his stories as readers become more demanding on the types of stories they want.
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