Ola Electric's market cap falls below $5 billion for the first time since listing

Ola Electric's market capitalisation slipped below $5 billion on Monday for the first time since its stock market debut, following a public spat between founder and chief executive Bhavish Aggarwal and stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra over the electric two-wheeler maker's service quality.

The Bengaluru-based electric two-wheeler maker's market capitalisation stood at $4.7 billion on October 7 on the BSE.

Ola Electric’s initial public offering (IPO), one of the biggest in India this year at an issue price of Rs 76, had propelled the company’s market capitalisation to over $7 billion.


The kerfuffle between Aggarwal and Kamra sparked off with the comedian raising concerns about Ola's scooter quality on X (formerly Twitter) on Sunday afternoon. Kamra shared an image of several EV scooters parked at an Ola service centre, writing, “Do Indian consumers have a voice? Do they deserve this? Two wheelers are many daily wage workers lifeline…” He also tagged Union minister for road transport and highways Nitin Gadkari, questioning, “is this how Indians will get to using EV’s?”


Aggarwal responded sharply to this tweet, accusing Kamra of posting a "paid tweet" and inviting him to join Ola to help resolve the issues.

“Since you care so much @kunalkamra88, come and help us out! I’ll even pay more than you earned for this paid tweet or from your failed comedy career. Or else sit quiet and let us focus on fixing the issues for the real customers. We’re expanding service network fast and backlogs will be cleared soon,” Aggarwal wrote.

The heated exchange continued, drawing significant public attention.

Ola Electric has recently faced growing customer complaints regarding after-sales service, software glitches and hardware issues, which experts believe have contributed to the decline in sales of its scooters.

ET has reached out to Ola Electric and Kamra for a comment on this matter.

Last month, the company's market share in the domestic electric two-wheeler segment dropped to 27.9%, according to data from the government portal Vahan. The same month, other players including Bajaj Auto, TVS Motor and Ather Energy, recorded market shares of 21.4%, 20.2%, and 14.8%, respectively.

To counter its after-sales challenges, Aggarwal had earlier announced that the company will double its service centres to 1,000 by December, as part of its ‘Hyperservice’ campaign.

By the close of trading on Monday, Ola Electric's shares had dropped more than 8%, closing at Rs 90.82, down from the previous close of Rs 99.05. The company's stock has declined by over 42% from its all-time high of Rs 157.5.