Fixing Service Gaps To Improve Sales, No Product Issues: Ola’s Bhavish Aggarwal

Ola Electric Founder, Chairman and Managing Director Bhavish Aggarwal said the company’s sales slowdown is due to service execution challenges rather than product quality issues, and fixing service gaps is key to improving sales.

The SoftBank-backed company’s volumes have been on a declining streak, with revenue plunging sharply in the third quarter. This pushed its automotive business back into an EBITDA loss after achieving breakeven in the previous quarter.

Ola Electric, which led the market in 2024, has slipped to fourth position in 2025, reflecting sustained pressure on sales. In the third quarter of this fiscal year, deliveries more than halved to 32,680 units from 84,029 units in the year-ago quarter and 52,666 units in the second quarter.

“We do have a service challenge which we are working through that has impacted brand trust and hence sales are down in the last couple of quarters,” Aggarwal said.

He acknowledged the impact of service issues on customer perception. “We acknowledge that execution gaps impacted brand trust among prospective customers. However, this is a service scale issue and not a product quality issue.”

The automotive business had slipped back into a negative EBITDA in the third quarter as lower volumes, which dented the topline, reduced operating leverage in a largely fixed cost structure.

Aggarwal said the company has been focused on strengthening service operations in a structural manner rather than pursuing short-term volume gains. “The roadmap to recovery is fixing service. That will actually let the product advantage shine.”

According to him, improvements are visible in certain regions where service issues have been addressed more deeply.

“We are seeing that goodness in regional sales metrics where we have solved service challenges more deeply… we see volumes have improved almost 2 to 3x in some markets, wherever we have more meaningfully solved service challenges,” he said.

While admitting that restoring brand confidence will take time, Aggarwal maintained that the underlying product strength remains intact.

Despite the decline in revenue and volumes, the automotive business improved its gross margin profile during the quarter, reflecting stronger per-unit economics. However, lower volumes meant fixed operating costs were spread over fewer vehicles, weighing on EBITDA.

At the consolidated level as well, revenue fell sharply in the third quarter and the EBITDA loss widened, even as gross margin improved. Aggarwal said the company is focused on stabilising service execution and rebuilding customer confidence before accelerating growth.

“We are fixing the service challenges in a very structural, institutional way. It will take some time,” he said.