Ather Energy is banking on its newly-launched 450X Gen 3 electric scooter to drive up its market share to 30% by the end of the current fiscal, from the current 9%, chief business officer Ravneet Singh Phokela told FE.
The company had announced late last year that it would start its second plant, which would help it increase its annual manufacturing capacity to 400,000 units, from the current 120,000. Ather had also committed to invest `650 crore in the next five years to increase efficiency and capacity to meet its demand, potentially helping it increase presence.
“We expect to reach out to a larger audience with the new scooter and capture 30% of the national demand for two-wheeler EVs by the end of this financial year,” Phokela said.Ather currently meets only 30% of its overall demand in a month, but is working towards increasing that number.
“While the industry has taken giant strides towards going mainstream, it has been hit by a few roadblocks, stalling its growth. One of the biggest challenges is building the supply chain.
The supply chain situation continues to get better and our monthly volumes will go up substantially over the next few months.
However, despite that, given the strong tailwinds we are seeing for the brand, it seems like the demand will run ahead of supply for the next few quarters,” he added.
Analysts concurred, saying that supply constraints will prove to be a hindrance to its growth. They also added that the road to acquire a 30% market share would be a long and bumpy one for Ather.
“A jump from 9% to 30% market share looks quite tough. Their supply constraints are easing and the market share will increase but 30% by FY23 is questionable.
The other players in the space will not be here doing nothing. A challenge for Ather is that they have only three models, which are just reiterations of their older ones,” said Suraj Ghosh, director, mobility, S&P Global.Ather’s retail sales stood at 2,451 units in April, 3,312 vehicles in May and 3,816 two-wheelers in June.
The total of 9,576 Ather scooters compares with 27,806 Ola EVs, 27,294 vehicles of Okinawa, Ampere’s 18,915 and Hero Electric’s 15,931, as per data sourced from the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (Fada).These sales gave Okinawa, Ampere, Hero Electric, Ola Electric and Ather a market share of 16.5%, 15.5%, 15.4%, 13.9% and 9%, respectively, as of June, according to Fada.In FY22, Ather sold a total of 23,408 units, up from 5,523 units in FY21.
The company reported a revenue of `408.5 crore in FY22, a jump of over five times from FY21. At the same time, its losses increased further to `344.1 crore from `233.3, according to Tofler data.The company has raised $286 million in funding so far and counts Hero MotoCorp, Tiger Global and National Infrastructure Investment Fund (NIIF) as its backers, Tracxn data showed.
