Ola Electric, India’s largest electric scooter maker by market share, reported on Friday that its second-quarter losses narrowed as sales surged, and said a recent surge in service requests was mainly due to “minor issues.”
The Bengaluru-based company said consolidated losses narrowed to 4.95 billion rupees ($58.7 million) in the July-September quarter from 5.24 billion rupees in the same period last year.
Ola’s quarterly revenue jumped 39.1% to 1,214 crore rupees, helped by sales of mass-market models or models priced below 100,000 rupees (about $1,186). The company had not started delivering these models last year.
From July to September, Ola Electric delivered a total of 98,619 two-wheelers, an increase of 73.6% over last year. Volkswagen model sales were 56,545 units.
Expenses increased 21.8%, down from the 26.6% increase in the previous quarter. Ola’s largest expense, raw material costs, rose 46.7% but fell 18.2% month-on-month.
Rising consumer complaints and regulatory scrutiny over allegations of poor service have cast a pall over the SoftBank-backed e-scooter maker following its market debut in August.
“Not all service requests received are product complaints or issues, many of them are scheduled inspections or scheduled maintenance,” founder and chairman Bhavish Aggarwal said on a call with analysts on Friday.
“Two-thirds of them are actually just minor issues, like a loose part or the customer being unfamiliar with the software being used,” Agarwal said.
Shares of Ola Electric have fallen 5.5% since its listing on August 9, while its dominance in the electric two-wheeler market has eroded in recent months.
“In the second quarter, we had some capacity challenges on the service side and our sales were growing faster than we could expand our service network,” Agarwal said.
Reuters visited 35 Ola centers in 10 Indian states last year and found that many faced severe backlogs, with demand outstripping the supply of labor or spare parts.
© Thomson Reuters 2024
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
