Bhavish Aggarwal is no stranger to big ambitions. Over the past few years, the Ola Electric founder has repeatedly outlined aggressive targets on sales, profitability and market leadership, only for the company to revise timelines or fall short of its own guidance.
Ola Electric had guided for revenue of Rs 3,000-3,200 crore for FY26 but ended the year at Rs 2,253 crore. It had also projected sales of 325,000-375,000 electric scooters but sold less than 174,000 units.
For the first time, however, execution appears to be catching up with ambition. The Bengaluru-based electric scooter maker guided for 40,000-45,000 units in the June quarter. As per the latest Vahan data, Ola Electric has already retailed 40,540 scooters during the quarter so far, putting it on track to meet—or even exceed—its guidance. The recovery, however, is not solely an Ola Electric story. It reflects a broader shift underway in India’s electric two-wheeler market.
Electric two-wheeler registrations surged 63% year-on-year to 170,733 units in May, according to the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA), making it the second-highest monthly retail volume on record. EV penetration in the two-wheeler market climbed to 9.3% from 6.1% a year ago, marking one of the sharpest annual gains.
According to FADA President C S Vigneshwar, rising fuel prices triggered by the West Asia conflict have made running costs a far bigger consideration for consumers, accelerating the shift towards electric mobility. Dealers also reported a noticeable rise in enquiries for electric vehicles as buyers increasingly prioritised lower ownership costs.
Ola Electric has been among the biggest beneficiaries of this demand revival. The turnaround also coincides with the company’s efforts to repair its biggest weakness—after-sales service.
Brand Trust Deficit
During the company’s third-quarter earnings call, Aggarwal admitted that mounting service backlogs had eroded customer confidence and weighed on sales. “We do have a service challenge, which we are working through. That has impacted brand trust and hence sales are down in the last couple of quarters,” he had said.
Since then, Ola Electric has rolled out its ‘Hyper Service’ initiative to reduce turnaround times and improve customer experience. During the fourth-quarter earnings call, Aggarwal said service turnaround time had fallen 88%, same-day closures had risen to around 87%, parts pendency was down 69%, while warranty costs for the Gen 3 platform had fallen 70% compared with Gen 2. The effects are visible in monthly sales. After plunging to a low of 3,968 units in February, Ola Electric’s monthly volumes steadily improved to 10,117 units in March, 12,166 units in April and 15,139 units in May.
Analysts believe the operational reset is beginning to reflect in the company’s financial outlook. According to S&P Global Market Intelligence’s Visible Alpha consensus estimates, Ola Electric is expected to return to revenue growth in FY27 after two consecutive years of contraction. Revenue from operations is projected to rise 23% year-on-year to Rs 27.7 billion, while vehicle sales are expected to increase 7% to 185,622 units, aided by improving realisations and stabilising operations.
Competitive Catch-22
Even if Ola achieves its guidance of 40,000-45,000 units in the June quarter, it would still remain well below the more than 68,000 scooters it sold in the corresponding quarter last year, suggesting that the company is still some distance away from regaining its previous scale. Once commanding nearly half of India’s electric two-wheeler market, Ola Electric’s market share has now slipped to around 8%, with TVS Motor, Bajaj Auto, Ather Energy and Hero MotoCorp strengthening their positions
Service-related concerns have also not entirely disappeared. A district consumer commission in Andhra Pradesh recently directed Ola Electric to repair an advocate’s scooter free of cost and pay Rs 45,000 towards compensation and litigation expenses after finding deficiency in service, underlining that customer satisfaction remains a work in progress.
For Ola Electric, therefore, the recent pickup in sales is an encouraging first step rather than the destination. A favourable industry cycle and improving execution have helped arrest the decline, but sustaining the recovery will depend on whether the company can consistently deliver on service, regain customer trust and translate renewed demand into lasting market share gains.
For a founder whose ambitions have often raced ahead of execution, the next few quarters will determine whether this time is indeed different.