Consumers don't buy commodities, they put a lot of trust on brand and quality: Ather CEO on IPO confidence

Tarun Mehta, Cofounder and CEO of Ather Energy

Ather Energy CEO Tarun Mehta dismissed concerns over the company’s valuation cut ahead of its planned IPO, emphasising that customers buy its electric two-wheelers for quality and service rather than as a 'commodity.'

His remarks come a day after reports suggest that Ather is considering lowering its listing valuation to $1.2 billion–$1.6 billion from an earlier $2 billion target while looking to raise $400 million.

“I think the job of the company is not to try and time the market. We've got a good business; we are hopefully scaling it up well. Beyond that, markets obviously always decide. But I am not a big fan of trying to time too much. Other industry peers, competitors, have multiple approaches and I think our approach is quite unique,” Mehta told Moneycontrol during a media interaction on the side lines of TiE Con Mumbai 2025 on March 12.

Mehta said he is confident of his “product, tech and quality-focused brand”.

“We believe that is central to building a long-term enduring auto company in India. Consumers don't buy commodities here. Consumers put a lot of trust in the auto brand they are buying. There is an enormous power of word of mouth and all that comes down to the quality a product has,” he said.

He added, “The reliability is seen and how good, how happy the customers are. So, between the twin intersections of the product experience, which is where the magic lies, and quality, which is what will hopefully ensure good word of mouth, there always has been a focus.”

He emphasised on the Ather stack strategy of building the entire ecosystem of hardware, product, largest charging network and software for good customer experience. Ather scooters have features such as auto hold, magic twist, to name a few, he said.

Overall, the Indian electric two-wheeler market has seen significant shifts in recent months, with traditional manufacturers Bajaj Auto and TVS Motor making notable gains in market share. In December 2024, Bajaj Auto led the market with a nearly 25% share, selling 18,276 units, while TVS Motor secured a 23.48% share with 17,212 units sold.

Listed rival, Ola Electric, previously the market leader, saw its share decline to 18.78% during the same period, with sales of 13,769 units.

Open-sourcing charging network

Ather is currently focused on building the largest network for open-source fast charging. Mehta shared that Ather has about 3,000-3,500 fast chargers on its network across the country.

It had doubled from 1,000-1500 fast chargers until last year, the company plans to announce its next expansion in a few months.

“For us, the first priority still is a widespread network of fast and ultra-fast chargers with very high uptimes. And towards that, we need to try more industry collaboration which is why we open sourced a standard. The Ather standard is not even called the Ather standard, it’s called LECCS, Light Electric Combined Charging System, and BIS (Bureau of Indian Standards) has accepted it now,” Mehta said.

He added that multiple OEMs have now adopted this standard, and Ather doesn’t plan to charge any installation or onboarding fee for the same.

“It's stupid for us to say, no, we will sell our charging standard. We'll put a royalty curtain behind it. No one will pay for it. Everybody will set up 10 different charging infrastructures. So, I think it's far better to just dissolve those barriers and make it easy for people to stop wasting time,” he said.