New Delhi: Bhavish Agarwal’s Ola Electric’s Q4 results offered its investors a ray of optimism after months of negative publicity due to Ola’s issues with customer service, value erosion and a public fallout involving comedian Kunal Kamra over Ola’s customer complaints.
According to a release to the bourses, Ola Electric reported a Rs.828 crore revenue from operations, a steep 50% decline from the Rs.1,644 crore reported for the same period last year. Its net loss widened to Rs.438 crore from Rs.347 crore last year for the same quarter.
Despite this, the company aims to achieve a revenue between Rs.4,200 to Rs.4,700 cr in 2026, considering that it delivered 32% more vehicles during the same period last year, and better margins have helped its auto business become EBITDA positive in June.
Though its cost optimisation initiative, named Project Lakshya, the company has reduced operational costs from Rs . 178 cr to Rs . 105 cr, a 41% reduction. Yet, the company has lost a significant chunk of its market share to TVS, Ather Energy and Bajaj Auto, mainly due to a lack of innovation and growing dissatisfaction with Ola’s poor track record of customer service.
Bhavish Agarwal has been regularly compared to Elon Musk, both in achievements and the audacious publicity they’ve done to promote Ola Electric and Tesla Motors, respectively.
After the initial euphoria, both are increasingly experiencing intense challenges to their reputations, with Elon’s increasing involvement in US politics distracting him from Tesla’s plummeting sales and Bhavish’s challenges with a brutal work culture at his AI startup, Krutrim.
Since its IPO in August last year, the company’s stock has declined by 53%, even as investors are hoping for a turnaround after months of declining sales and goodwill due to Bhavish’s excessive focus on growth at any cost. Even though things are looking better for Ola Electric, it still has a lot of catching up to do in the market, even as EV sales have surpassed 1,00,000 units and continue to grow in double digits.
