New D-Street entrant Ola Electric is on the path to profitability and expects its auto business to turn EBITDA positive in the 2025-26 fiscal, the company’s founder Bhavish Aggarwal said on November 11.
“We are building the future at Ola Electric, we are the EV leader. We have strength in technology, manufacturing, especially for EVs, and distribution. Shareholders are seeing strong value in our story. The share price will move up or down. I’m not bothered about daily movements of share price, but our focus is to build the future of the automotive segment of the modern industry with Ola Electric. We are allocating capital wisely and are on the path to profitability,” he said in a post-earnings chat with CNBC-TV18 after the company announced his July to September quarter results on November 8.
In the second quarter of FY25, the firm slightly trimmed its net loss to ₹495 crore compared to ₹524 crore in the same quarter last year. Revenue for the period increased by 39.1% on a year-on-year basis to ₹1,214 crore, compared to ₹873 crore in the year-ago quarter. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) stood at a loss of ₹379 crore, which is narrower than the loss of ₹435 crore that it had reported in the year-ago quarter.
Gross margin for the quarter stood at 20.3% during the quarter, Ola Electric said in a press release. It delivered 98,619 units, a growth of 73.6% for the quarter when compared to the year-ago period.
In the exclusive interview with CNBC-TV18, Ola Electric’s Aggarwal said the firm’s gross margin is expected to improve further in the coming quarters.
“Our gross margins continue to improve quarter-on-quarter. In Q2 over Q1, our gross margins had a three-point improvement due to cost reduction, but then we invested part of that back into growth. Over the next couple of quarters, we will see a good journey of improvement on gross margins, because our theme on manufacturing vertical integration, as well as the Gen three platform is coming together between this quarter and next quarter,” he said.
Amid the spotlight on Central Consumer Protection Authority’s (CCPA) show cause notice to Ola Electric last month for over 10,000 customer complaints, Aggarwal said the service backlog is history now and that his firm has no service backlog at this point.
“The whole noise around service that we had seen a month or so ago is behind us now. We had a temporary increase in service outstanding backlogs because we had not expanded capacity fast enough in the last six to eight months. We have addressed that. We are now doing more than 80% of service requests within T+1 days. That means, if you bring your scooter today, we will service it today or tomorrow. 80% of such issues are resolved in T+1 days,” he explained.
Ola Electric’s founder also stated that the firm’s focus has been on market leadership and investments in growth while continuing on the path to profitability.
The company’s target market share is about between 30-35%. Despite competitive intensity, the firm is able to focus on the target, not just within the e-scooter segment, but also on broadening the EV journey of India from scooters into motorbikes into three-wheelers.
Aggarwal also said that for the foreseeable future, he expects about one-third of Ola Electric’s volumes to come from premium and about two-thirds from the mass segments, respectively. “That would mean revenue of about 50-50,” he explained.