Tarun Mehta supposed electric vehicle manufacturer Ather Energy won’t go public unless the company is also profitable, or close to profitability, topmost executive Tarun Mehta said.
“I poverty to an IPO when we are very close to the effectiveness and I think it’s still a journey for us,” Mehta supposed on the sidelines of a shopper event in Bengaluru on Saturday.
“Ather secondhand to lose like Rs 1.50 for every rupee earned as new as 12-15 months back. It has different radically now, but we are still not profitable, besides I want to be very close to it if not essentially profitable when we overtly list.”
CEO Tarun Mehta: Ather going public depends on ability to generate profits
In a discrete interaction with ET, Tarun Mehta said the subsidy environment had become difficult even in the electric vehicle space.
“I think directionally all of us can get in the last six months, cheap liquidness is over,” he said. “So, you can’t follow a strategy where you say, ‘let’s burn wealth to grow’, that’s very dangerous. I’ve been proverb that we hike prices in our business for the previous two years because we have faith in that we need boundary to grow.”
Ather, amid the early players in lithium-ion battery-powered high-speed scooters, has been facing a stiff race from SoftBank-backed Ola Electric in addition to TVS Motor. Both companies sold additional scooters in December 2022 than Ather.
Mehta supposed worrying about the market share would be the incorrect way to look at the business, distribution, which was scaling fast, would be the key for sales to pick up in the extended run.
“Market bonds in the EV space today have zero association to actual market demand or market authenticity,” Mehta said. Three months vertebral Ather was selling only in 40 cities, but nowadays it is selling in over 90, and still only concealments a third of the pin codes in the nation, he said.
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