Ola scooters give a lift to group firm's bike taxi business

: Bhavish Aggarwal led Ola Electric has sold more than 8,200 scooters to promoter group company ANI Technologies Ltd, which is looking to launch and expand its electric bike taxi service in various Indian cities. Ola Electric, which has filed draft papers for an initial public offering, confirmed the numbers to Mint.

However, Ola Electric’s draft papers, filed on 22 December and that cite financials till 30 June, make no mention of the related party transaction, implying these sales occurred in the six months after June. According to three people aware of the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, Ola Electric sold at least 12,000 scooters to ANI Technologies and its subsidiaries from April 2022 to December 2023, with the majority of these sales taking place in December.

Ola, however, denied the bump in registrations in December. It also pointed to its own figure of 8,206 scooters registered by ANI Technologies. According to Vahan data, Ola Electric sold around 376,000 electric scooters since inception till end of December 2023. Ola accounted for four out of every 10 electric scooters sold in India in December, data released on 1 January showed.

An Ola Electric spokesperson said demand for electric two wheelers has been rising in ride hailing and last mile logistics. “Till date, 8,206 Ola Electric scooters have been registered under ANI Technologies for its e bike, parcel and other delivery services. In total, 2.17% of our overall registrations till date have been under ANI Technologies." The spokesperson declined to answer Mint’s questions on sales to ANI Technologies in December, and sales plans for January.

Registration data in the Vahan portal typically lag billings, or sales, by a few days, or even weeks in some cases. Ola Electric was founded in 2017 as an electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing arm of cab operator ANI Technologies. Later, Aggarwal bought out more than 92% stake of ANI Technologies in Ola Electric.

The firm has been selling e scooters since December 2021. ANI Technologies recently launched a bike taxi service in Bengaluru with Ola Electric scooters. According to the people cited above, Ola Electric has amped up sales to ANI Technologies, with about 1,500 scooters registered each month between September and November, a number that had stood at 100–150 scooters per month till then.

In a response to Mint’s query, Ola Electric declined to share how many scooters it sold in any specific month to ANI Technologies. Aggarwal posted on X in September that the company had restarted ‘Ola bike’ in Bengaluru. “This time, all electric and our own S1 scooters! 25 for 5km, 50 for 10km.

Lowest cost, very comfortable and great for the environment... Will scale across India over next few months," Aggarwal’s post read. Ola Electric plans to expand bike taxi service in various cities, and an announcement is expected over the next few weeks, the people said. “As a group, we have strong synergies between Ola and Ola Electric with large scale EV manufacturing capabilities and deep mobility network insights across India, which we will leverage to accelerate this transition...we will scale aggressively across multiple cities in the near future", an ANI Technologies spokesperson said in an emailed response to ’s questions about whether Ola Cabs will continue to buy scooters from Ola Electric to build its eBike service.

Ola scooter registrations by ANI Technologies have jumped in Delhi, West Bengal, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, where its bike taxi services are planned, the people cited above said. More registrations are likely in January, they said..