Ola Electric Claims Customers Kept Buying Despite Viral Service Complaints

Consumers are returning to Ola Electric Mobility Ltd.'s scooters despite months of viral complaints over delayed repairs and service issues, according to the company's management, which said demand has risen sharply in recent weeks and inventory has fallen to some of the lowest levels since launch. 

"People are buying whatever they can find in the network from us," Chairman and Managing Director Bhavish Aggarwal said during the company's earnings call on Tuesday. He said inventory in the company's network had dropped to "three-to-four days" and that Ola now had an order backlog. 

The comments mark a shift in tone for the Bengaluru-based electric scooter maker, which spent much of the past year dealing with customer complaints over long repair timelines, spare-part shortages and service centre delays that spread widely across social media platforms.

The company said demand began recovering after it reduced service backlogs and improved repair turnaround times. Aggarwal said sales had rebounded in a "V-shaped recovery" as service operations improved.

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Service Backlash

While Ola faced sustained criticism online, the company said customer interest in its vehicles remained intact, helped by product performance, pricing and rising interest in electric vehicles. 

"This period had service challenges and we were focused on solving them," Aggarwal said. "Brand has actually held well." 

The company also sought to push back against the scale of recent criticism online. Aggarwal said some videos circulating on social media were older clips that continued resurfacing online. "Some of the videos on social obviously are old videos, so they keep recirculating online due to competitive pressures," he said. 

Ola said service delays were partly caused by weaknesses in its parts supply chain after it rapidly expanded its company-owned service network. Aggarwal said the company earlier did not stock parts directly at service centres, which increased repair timelines even for smaller replacements. 

"So earlier we were not stocking any parts in our service center," he said. "Even for a brake pad replacement the guy had to wait 10 days." Aggarwal said Ola has since changed how it procures and stores spare parts by moving to forecast-based stocking instead of ordering only after service requests arrived.

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Demand Recovery

The company said registrations rose 20% month-on-month in April even as the broader electric two-wheeler market declined more than 22%. 

Aggarwal also said demand for electric motorcycles was rising in northern India, which remains one of the country's largest petrol-bike markets. He linked part of that demand to fuel prices. "I actually feel now, especially with the petrol prices, the bike EV moment is here," he said.

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