Ather Energy has a ‘Middle-India’ pivot for a ‘Pan-India’ play

The Ather 450X looks fast at standstill. At full chat, it whines as though powered by a jet-propulsion engine. Bangalore loves it, as does most of South India, so much so that Ather Energy Ltd. is the market leader in that geography. But in a country where a scooter is ubiquitously an ‘Activa’, the 450X doesn’t cut it. We like our scooters large, with a heft of metal, enough to seat a family of four—however illegal it may be.

Ather Energy's sales rose 67% year-on-year to 65,595 units for a market share that improved 530 basis points to 17.4% in Q2 FY26. (Tushar Deep Singh/HT)

Enter the Rizta. The family scooter—with the innards of the 450X—has been a runaway success for the company founded by Tarun Mehta and Swapnil Jain, so much so that Ather Energy has grown its market share in Middle India by at least 10 percentage points since the Rizta was launched in June 2024.

Was this always the plan—different strokes for different folks?

“Your business strategy, your distribution strategy, follows your portfolio,” Ravneet Phokela, chief business officer at Ather Energy, told this writer over a virtual chat.

“Then the question was: Where to expand? What are the flavours of the expansion? Now, we’ve always believed that essentially, for a market as large and diverse as India, it makes sense to win by market, not topdown.”

1. South India consolidation: Despite commanding the highest 25% market share in the region, Ather Energy approach is now more granular. The company is now going into Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities like Calicut, Coimbatore and Guntur by opening new stores in these towns. This ensures a stable revenue base and market leadership in its core region.

2. Middle India penetration: The primary focus of the current expansion efforts, targeting high-demand, high-growth states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Odisha. This concentration minimises risks by focusing resources on a geographically contiguous cluster.

3. North India scale-up: The future growth is explicitly planned around expansion into the north. This phase will gather steam following the introduction of the new EL platform.

That allowed Ather Energy to deliver its highest quarterly revenue of ₹940.7 crore as well as an overall market share of 17.4% in Q2 FY26.

“Middle India was a big opportunity,” Phokela said. “The large market—Maharashtra and Gujarat and are among the Top 3 two-wheeler markets in India—a large scooter population and relatively high GDP compared to the north, leads to the opportunity to command and pay the price that we were seeking.”

“In terms of pure focus—whether it’s distribution, any go-to-market element, marketing— the focus is Middle India, which is why, if you see, we have gained market leadership in Gujarat. In Maharashtra, it has doubled,” Phokela said.

“Odisha is increasing, Chhattisgarh is increasing, Madhya Pradesh is increasing… So, it’s really a question of being very focused on where you want to attack, and making sure the resources that you have are not spread thin, but are focused on geographies where we see the biggest bang for the buck.”

“For the first two years, we had just one product. The 450X is a performance scooter, which is 5, 7 maybe 10% of the (overall) market. While the South likes performance, the North and West prefer family scooters. So, if you have access to 5% or 10% of the market, there are only so many stores you can open,” Phokela said. “Rizta coming in changed two things: One, is that our accessible market went from 20% to 100% but importantly it gave us the licence to open stores everywhere.”

The Rizta now accounts for nearly 60% of Ather Energy’s total sales. The company’s retail footprint moved in tandem—from 351 so-called experience centres at the end of FY25 to 524 experience centres as on 30 September 2025. Between July and September, Ather opened 78 new centres nationwide—58 of these in Middle and North Indian markets.

The expansion isn’t limited to metropolitan areas. New Ather stores have come up in Tier-II and Tier-III centres like Indore, Nashik, Vodadodara and Bilaspur.

There’s a method here as well, according to Phokela.

“When you look at store expansion, there is one ‘reach store’, which is basically the first store in a location. And then there are ‘density stores’, which is the second, or third, or fourth store in a particular market—as it becomes bigger and matures.”

“So, from a skewed perspective, South India is now seeing a lot of density stores coming up. As you keep going north, it’s less about density and more about reach. There’s more balance in the middle.”

Clearly, Ather Energy’s business strategy has moved on from product-led to distribution driven, with the aim to open 700 experience centres by the end of FY26.