Ather races ahead of Ola Electric on total income for the first time

New Delhi: Ather Energy Ltd's total revenue, including interest earned from investments, has for the first time surpassed that of Bhavish Aggarwal-led cross-town rival Ola Electric Mobility Ltd, which is struggling to maintain its market share.

During the July-September period, Bengaluru-based Ather Energy recorded total revenue of ₹941 crore, a 57% increase over a year earlier. Its losses narrowed to ₹154 crore from ₹197 crore during the period.

In contrast, Ola Electric’s revenue fell 42% to ₹756 crore, but losses narrowed to ₹418 crore from ₹495 crore a year earlier.

To be sure, Ather's revenue from operations at ₹676 crore in the January-March quarter of 2025 had surpassed that of Ola Electric at ₹611 crore. However, Ola Electric's other income was higher at ₹117 crore during that period against Ather Energy's ₹11.7 crore.

Both companies saw their earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization or Ebitda margins improve during the September quarter. Ebitda is a measure of operating profitability.

Ather’s Ebitda margin improved by 11 percentage points to -10% while Ola Electric saw its margins improve by just over 3% percentage points to -18.1% during the period as both the startups chase profitability.

First time

Ather, which started selling electric scooters in 2018, saw its total sales cross Ola Electric’s for the first time during the second quarter ended September. Ather’s total volumes jumped 67% year-on-year to 65,595 units, while Ola Electric saw its total sales nearly halve to 52,666 as it continues to struggle with service issues and rising competition.

“Q2 has been a strong quarter, with steady growth in market share and continued progress on our path to profitability. We saw continued improvement in Ebitda margin with improving operating leverage,” Tarun Mehta, co-founder and chief executive at Ather, said on the results.

“Our strategic focus on Middle India has delivered results, with several states scaling up rapidly. The Rest of India has also grown strongly, making our expansion more broad-based. In the South, we continue to lead the market and are seeing a new growth story driven by a denser retail presence across key cities,” Mehta said.

During the current financial year, Ather Energy is expanding its presence nationwide by doubling the number of stores to 700. Ather follows a dealership model and doesn’t own the stores, while Ola Electric operates more than 3,200 own stores.

“Middle India emerged as the fastest-growing region, rising to 14.6% in Q2 FY26 from 8.8% year-on-year, driven by significant growth in states such as Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra supported by expanding retail presence and robust consumer demand,” Ather said in a statement after the results.

Narrowing sales gap

The rise of Ather is emerging as one of the success stories in the country's electric two-wheeler market in 2025. In the year ended March 2025, Ather sold 1,55,394 scooters, less than half of the 3,59,221 sold by Ola.

Now, Ather is fast closing the gap with Ola: in the first six months of the current fiscal year, it sold 111,673 scooters compared to Ola’s 120,858.

The company listed in May this year and has seen its market value more than double since then. Ather's promoters owned 41.22% of the company at the end of June, with co-founders Mehta and Jain holding 10.28%, and Hero Motocorp Ltd. at 30.26%.

Ather's market valuation surpassed Ola Electric's in October and has stayed above it. Ola Electric's shares have fallen by 42% since listing at ₹76 per share in August last year.

Meanwhile, Hero MotoCorp’s chief financial officer Vivek Anand joined the seven-member board of Ather Energy on Monday.

Ather has been focused on delivering profitability to investors, with a dual emphasis on distribution and technology.

"There's an incorrect assessment of the automotive industry that whoever produces more will have a better margin," Mehta told Mint in an interview earlier. “Volume has played a minimal role in unit economics over the years. There's a ton of value engineering. There's a lot of process optimisation, and then there's a lot of technology improvement to bring in, which improves cost structures. Engineering is the superpower."

Mehta said the race is on between legacy players and new-age companies on technology and distribution.

“Your cost differences don't come about as much from scale. Scale has an impact, but a much larger impact is in engineering and design, which is why we are choosing to focus so heavily on these areas,” Mehta had said. “The real race is between whether the competition can catch up on tech first or whether we can catch up on distribution first."