Electric two-wheeler major Ather Energy expects to commence exports over the next few months, the company’s chief business officer Ravneet Phokela told FE.
Phokela said the third-largest two-wheeler player has been scouting for potential markets, including the European and ASEAN countries, to commence exports.
“Exports are very much in our plans. We’ve been resisting the temptation for exports as we have got a lot of inbound demand,” said Phokela. “Right now, the domestic opportunity is really huge. So, we were focused there… you may hear about our first (exports) announcement as early as the next couple of months.”
The company has an annual production capacity of 420,000 units, while it retails around 8,000-10,000 units per month. In August, the company sold 8,062 units, up from 6,410 units a year ago. In FY23, it sold 84,513 units, up 266% from FY22.
For the upcoming festive season, Phokela expects a positive buyers’ sentiment to prevail, which should increase the industry’s retail levels to pre-subsidy rollback levels.
Notably, the industry had to increase prices due to the rollback of some of the FAME-II subsidy, which was being provided by the Centre to prop-up demand.
The FAME-II scheme provided Rs55,500 per unit but a few months ago it was rolled back to Rs 22,485 per unit.
“There was an issue (subsidy rollback) but during the last couple of months, we are seeing a month-on-month growth coming back and we hope that by the festive season the industry would reach the pre-subsidy level.”
Batting for the next phase of the FAME scheme, Phokela said, “FAME-III is required, but we do not need to go back to the original subsidy levels because those were unreal and unsustainable, and it’s not good for the market because you were artificially reducing prices.”
“So, when subsidy goes away, the market goes into a big shock. The current subsidy levels are the right levels. And we wish and hope that there is a phase III that allows us to sustain this (growth) for about three years or so,” he said.
On the proposal to subsume FAME into the existing PLI schemes, he said that these PLIs do not cover all OEMs because of the qualifying criteria.
At present, the Centre runs two PLI schemes for automobile and auto component industry, and another one for advanced chemistry cell (ACC) battery storage.
“The PLI qualifying criteria are extreme, either you have to be a very large company or you had to be a company with zero revenue,” Phokela said, adding that the electric two-wheeler maker continues to be ‘unit profitable’, despite the lower subsidy.
However, he mentioned that profitability at a company level is pushed out by a few months because of lower subsidy.
