Electric two-wheeler startup, Ather Energy, has put its plans for overseas expansion on hold, at least for 2020. The company was in discussions in a few markets last year and were in the process of shortlisting local country partners but had to hold off all international expansion plans due to COVID-19 crisis. In a free-wheeling discussion, Siddharth Vinayak Patankar, editor-in-chief, carandbike asked Tarun Mehta, CEO and co-founder, Ather Energy, about international sales and he said that a better idea would be to focus the company's energy into holistically expanding in India.
Also Read: Ather Targets One Million Sales In The Next 5 Years
"Let me just clarify this, we are not going international this year. Maybe next year, but not even sure of that! At some point, last year we did have serious plans. We were in active conversations in a few international markets. We were shortlisting our local country partners and then COVID happened and we kind of realised that the amount of effort we are putting in there was significant and the payoffs were really in the future and we have so much work to do in domestic expansion not in 3,4,5 but like in 10, 15, 30, 50, 100 cities and our energy is better spent opening up the Indian markets so we decided to put on our international plans for hold this year. We will only pick it up sometime next year and given that opening a country takes a long time, I would realistically expect international sales to begin like in 2022, not before that," Mehta said.
Also Read: Ather To Begin Deliveries In Delhi-NCR By November 2020
(Tarun Mehta, Ather Energy Co-Founder and CEO)
The Bengaluru-based company will begin manufacturing from its new Hosur plant in December 2020 and is looking to expand operations in new cities across India along with focussing on exports. The new manufacturing facility in Hosur will have a production capacity of 100,000 units per year and if need be, the company can scale up the production to 500,000 units per year as well. It will be the hub for manufacturing the Ather 450X electric scooter.
Also Read: Ather Introduces Referral Program for Ather 450 Scooter Owners
(Ather realistically looks at international sales to begin in 2022)
The company recently announced a referral program for existing customers in a bid to entice new buyers. The company will offer monetary benefits to new and existing owners up till Rs. 2,500 when current owners share a referral code with their family, friends and acquaintances to purchase the Ather 450. The new program is currently live in Bengaluru and Chennai, but we expect the company to extend the offer in other cities as well, as it expands operations later in 2020.
Also Read: Hero MotoCorp Invests Rs. 84 Crore In Ather Energy
(The new manufacturing plant in Hosur will be a manufacturing hub for the Ather 450X )
The company is also securing funding in order to build up capacity and for operations expansion along with research and development. Hero MotoCorp invested Rs. 84 crore in Ather, increasing its stake from 31.27 per cent to 34.58 per cent in Series C round of funding in July 2020. In fact, Hero, the world's biggest two-wheeler company had invested Rs. 205 crore in 2016 at the Series B round of funding.
