Ola Electric Inflated Sales Numbers In February: Bloomberg Report
Last month, we published a story about how the electric two-wheeler manufacturer managed to regain the pole position in the electric two-wheeler segment in February. As per the data released by the manufacturer, Ola had a 28 percent share of the EV two-wheeler segment. However, it looks like Ola has been lying about their sales numbers. A new report has revealed that Ola counted its yet-to-be-launched electric motorcycles and e-scooter bookings in the February sales numbers.
By adding the number of vehicle bookings to the sales, Ola actually managed to make their market share look larger than the actual numbers. By doing this, the electric two-wheeler brand planned to win the confidence of investors.
The SoftBank Group-backed firm told India’s Ministry of Road Transport and Highways in a letter dated 21 March that Ola had added customer bookings—not just 1 or 2, but 10,866 units of Gen 3 electric scooters—to the February sales record.
Not just the electric scooters, but Ola also added 1,395 Roadster X motorcycles that have not even rolled out from the factory to the sales record. The report mentions that Ola cited these bookings as confirmed orders and added them to the final sales numbers.
The third-generation Ola electric scooters were launched earlier this year, but official deliveries for the scooters only started in March. The manufacturer added the numbers of the scooters to February.
Bhavish Aggarwal’s Ola Electric has managed to stay in the news since its launch. In February, Ola claimed that they sold over 25,000 units of scooters in the market. However, the new report reveals that 50 percent of this number is from scooters and bikes that never got delivered to actual customers.
While Ola said they sold over 25,000 units, the government portal only showed around 8,600 units have been registered. This is far less than the numbers released by Ola. The ministry had asked the company to clarify its monthly sales numbers.
Ola had said in February that due to ongoing renegotiations with two vendors, the registration of the vehicles may get delayed, but the gap between actual registrations and the sales numbers released by Ola is large, and this has actually triggered a query from the ministry.
The ministry, on March 31, asked Ola to revise the numbers and include only the scooters that were invoiced in its February sales figures. The ministry has also demanded a response from Ola on this matter within seven days.
Customers raising complaints about Ola scooters is a common thing on the internet. Most of them have been complaining about the poor service, while the manufacturer claims otherwise. Lately, Ola has been coming up with new scheme to attract more customers. Ola had launched something that they call Hyper delivery. Under this scheme a customer can buy, register and the get the vehicle delivered on the same day.
The company is not currently under any formal probe regarding the fake sales numbers issue. However, the ministry will check if any local laws were broken or if the firm misrepresented its sales.
Ola has also faced raids and vehicle seizures from state transport officials for lack of trade certificates at its stores. The Road Transport Ministry has asked Ola about this non-compliance related to trade certificates.
Via: Bloomberg