Bengaluru based Electric 2 Wheeler manufacturer Ather Energy which was founded in 2013 by Tarun Mehta and Swapnil Jain makes a significant announcement Today that it proposes to open an initial public offering (“Offer”) of its equity shares of face value of ₹1 each (“Equity Shares”) on Monday, April 28, 2025. This article doesn’t discuss on specifics of the IPO rather tries to list down highlights from Today’s press conference explaining why a potential investor should invest in Ather, highlights of company’s performance, its current product portfolio and future road map, projected EV market growth in India, customer trends in premium offerings, a bit on suppliers, cell manufacturing (diversification of suppliers), volumes, profit margin and growth in last 9 months.
Short Introduction
At the core, there are 4 core team members including Tarun Mehta, Swapnil Jain, Ravneet S. Phokela and one more as the backbone of the company. Back then, the founding team had a clear vision to create a product led differentiation offering product refinement and Apple was a great inspiration. In India, most automotive players followed a same pattern of collaborating with Japanese companies – but Ather wanted to build a strong company with solid engineering as its foundation and build on top of it.
Riding on EV growth
It all started shaping up well from the year 2018 when the company established a proper operating ecosystem brick by brick over the years. Ather successfully delivered its first 10 electric scooters to customers which was assembled/manufactured at their Whitefield factory. Fast forward to 2025, Ather is one of the major players in E2W segment. As of FY 2024, 5% of two wheelers sold in India are electric and Ather holds significant share in India’s EV revolution. By FY 20231, the Ather expects that there is going to be 40% EV penetration in India.
Premiumization Trend
Ather team highlighted on how consumer trend has changed significantly from FY 2019 to FY2024 especially in two wheeler segment. For a particular premium feature, the demand has gone up from mere 20% in 2019 to about 66% in FY 2024. Think of premium features like Fall-safe ( a safety feature), Magic Twist (an innovative Braking feature), Maps on the Go etc… There is a rising demand for premium features on two wheelers and customers are ready to pay for the extra value addition which they get. Especially for Electric vehicles, the choice for premium features available for customers is greater and 70% of vehicles sold in India are 2-wheelers. It is easy to perceive that Ather is betting really big on “Premiumization Trend” and how it is a strong player when it comes to product differentiation / refinement.
Business Model
In one of the slides shown at the press conference presentation, Ather highlights on 4 pillars of its business model – (1) Mastering Vertical integration, (2) Software all-over or Software defined vehicles, (3) Premium brand positioning (4) Capital efficiency (Ather currently doesn’t own stores)
Ather – Strength
Ather is obsessed with Research and Development. Nearly 46% of Ather’s total workforce is made up of R&D workforce. The result? Ather currently owns 201 registered designs, 303 trademarks and 45 patents which is accumulated within a short amount of time.
Product Range Expansion
Ather strongly believes in bringing more number of platforms to the market than bringing in yet-another-variant of same product. The company itself was running with one single platform uptil 2021. From the year 2022 to 2024, Ather has introduced more number of products to the market by adding new platforms – Gen 3.1, Ather 450X with different battery capacities, Apex, Rizta and more.
Platforms
There are 3 platforms – 450 Platform, EL Platform and Zenith platform. At present all their prime products like Ather 450X, 450S, Apex, Rizta which are currently available in the market are based on 450 Platform. EL and Zenith are Ather’s upcoming platform. The EL platform is primarily aimed at focusing on bringing the vehicle cost down and the products launched under EL platform will be very cost effective. The Zenith is an upcoming premium platform which is targeted in developing performance products aimed towards 125cc-300cc ICE motorcycles and scooters. Expect more powerful performance 2 wheelers from Ather under the new Zenith platform soon.
The growth and attention for Ather Rizta product especially from North India is immense. Rizta quickly grew from 5% to 25% market share. This gives Ather more confidence to increase the count of E2W charging points which currently stands at 3000+ across India. LECCS charging standard has been adopted widely across its Ather Grid network.
Atherstack
The innovation – Especially in the software side has positively impacted on product experience resulting in good sales performance. Ather has always made sure the base variant of any of their products shall feature all performance/specs without the need for additional software. For those whole love the enhancements/value addition through software (which they get by use of applications like Google maps on the go)- the word of mouth marketing is happening automatically.
No of Dealers
Mr Ravneet S. Phokela talking about the distribution said there are 266 Ather experience centres across India. 61% of total sales generated by Ather comes from South market. It is important to note that 67% of sales generated from E2W players originate from North market. Clearly there is a room for increasing profitability by adding more distribution. Increasing number of outlets across India especially in the north belt can bump up profits by 3%.
Manufacturing
Factory in Tamilnadu
Ather’s Hosur factory in Tamilnadu has an annual capacity of 4.5 lakh units. There are vehicle assembly lines, battery assembly lines and battery pack manufacturing facility available at the Hosur plant in Tamilnadu.
Factory 3.0 in Maharashtra
Ather’s upcoming factory will be located in Maharashtra where it is going to obtain a total production capacity of 5 lakh units in 1st phase and another 5 lakh unit production capacity in 2nd phase. Having a production plant in Maharashtra is important as it is going to save manifold in Logistics cost. The Factory 3.0 will spread over 100 acres of land in Maharashtra.
Supply chain
Ather has devised a good strategy to handle any operation interruptions by smartly tying up with multiple suppliers. Instead of working with a single supplier, Ather has diversified suppliers. Swapnil Jain of Ather mentions, instead of having a transactional one time relationship with suppliers it has built a more deep and engaging relationship with its suppliers. Some of tech suppliers of Ather Energy include Qualcomm, Mahle, Infinity etc.
Ather worked with about 123 suppliers in FY 2022, which increased to 260+ suppliers in FY 2025.
Cell Supply chain
Ather Energy currently has active MoUs with Amara Raja and LG for the battery and cells. Some of the other names in Cell Supply chain include CATL, LG, EVE Energy, Samsung SDI, Foresis, CALB etc. Ather currently is of view that manufacturing cells in-house doesn’t make sense.
Financial Overview
The volumes (vehicle sales) have significantly gone up from 74,383 units in 9-months-ended Dec 2023 to 107,983 in 9-months-ended Dec 2024. It is a 45% increase in sales volume. Talking about the total income – Ather managed to generate total income of INR 12,537 million in 9 months-ended Dec 2023. The total income which it generated in 9-months-ended Dec 2024 is INR 16,174 million. The Gross margin has increased from 9% to 19%.
It is important to note that Ather achieved this significant milestone without any PLI support ( Production-Linked Incentive scheme) and the growth is steady despite removal of various subsidies from the Government.
What’s your take on Ather as a company? Have you used Ather products and what is your take on Ather going for IPO?
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