The curious case of Ola's scooter 'sales' without invoices

Copyright © HT Digital Streams Limit all rights reserved. Companies Ayaan Kartik 5 min Read April 14, 2025, 05:30 AM. The development comes in the background of Ola Electric, which is gradually losing to opponents in recent months. (Reuters) Summary of Ola Electric’s dispute with its registration agencies has led thousands of scooters to be paid by clients, but without invoices. It can manifest in the quarterly earnings of the business when it lists sales revenue. New Delhi: Ola Electric Mobility Ltd, India’s leader for two wheeler markets, was unable to raise invoices for more than half of the vehicles he sold in February due to problems with two registration agencies. The issuance of invoices is the key to the conclusion of the sale of a product and delivery according to the country’s tax laws, and the non-issue can affect the income discussion of OLA Electric of these vehicles when declaring its March quarter and fiscal FY25 earnings. In February, the company said in a communications to the Union Roads Ministry that it had received confirmed orders for 25.207 vehicles in February, which was sharp above the number shown by the government’s registration portal Vahan. Following a inquiry from the Road Transport and Highways (Mort) Ministry, the company replied on April 7 that it had yielded invoices for about 9,206 vehicles during the month. Furthermore, in an clarity to the exchanges on April 8, the company said 90% of the orders, or 22,686 vehicles, were paid in full by customers at the time of placing the orders. This leaves a gap of about 13,500 vehicles for which invoices were not generated. Read also | Ola Electric says it has enough service centers. Govt does not buy Mint assessed the private communication between Ola Electric and the Ministry of the Road, as well as the company’s exchange -filing over the past month. In a statement to Mint on April 12, a spokesman for the company emphasized that the usual delivery time line was influenced by the transition from the registration process to internal teams. “Our timelines for delivery of vehicles ranged from 1 and 2 weeks from the date of purchase, depending on the customer’s location and choice of vehicle. Invoices are generated on the availability of vehicles, followed by registration and delivery,” the spokesman said, adding that revenue is recognized only when vehicle registration and delivery are completed. The development comes in the background of Ola Electric, which gradually lost to competitors for the past few months, especially Bajaj Auto and TVS Motor Company, which was quickly off the blocks with new products and offers. Read it | Within Ola Electric’s performance with registration agencies in March, Fada (Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations) showed Bajaj Auto in the pole position in the retail sales of Electric Twhuikers, with TVS car in second place and OLA, third. To be sure, OLA led the package in FY25 with retail sales of 344,009 units and a market share of 29.9%, lower than the FY24 market share of 34.79%. The billing requirement invoices, apart from the sale of a sales record for businesses to discuss income, is also a formal record for the purposes of goods and services (GST). Typically, an invoice contains the details of the customer, the GST amount, the GST number and the details of the product sold. Experts and votes in the industry have said that there is usually no such great gap in generating invoices and total sales in a month. ‘Invoice for a sale is given immediately or within a few hours. In some cases, it may take a day or two, but there is no very long delay, “an executive officer said at a two-wheeler manufacturer on condition of anonymity. Gaurav Makhijani, co-partner and head of taxes (Northern India and Gujarat) at the tax consultation firm Roedl & Partner India, pointed out that in the case of direct enterprises, invoices are usually generated immediately in sales. Read also | The deliveries of the scooter of Ola Electric have hit because it renegotiates contracts with vehicle registration agencies to cut costs “According to GST legislation, invoices are required to be issued before the goods start or before the goods delivery to the customer,” Makhijani added. “There may be some cases where discussion is done with advance before delivery.” How events unfolded the problem of Ola Electric sales data began when the company reported a major gap in its Vahan Portal Registrations and Total Sales in February. The portal showed that about 8,600 vehicles were registered by Ola Electric in February, but the company claimed in a statement that the exchanges had sold more than 25,000 vehicles in the month. Ola told the exchanges that re -negotiations with two agencies, Rosmerta Digital Services Pvt. Ltd. and Shimnit India Pvt. Ltd., led to a disruption in the registration process. The Roads Ministry noted the gap in the sales and registration data and wrote to the company on March 18 and asked for the details of the number of vehicles manufactured, sold and registered in February. The company replied on March 21 that it had received confirmed orders for 25.207 vehicles in February. These confirmed orders especially contain 1,395 orders for its new motorcycle Roadster X, of which the first model was rolled out of the factory on April 11. Read it | Weeks after raising funds, Zypp joins Ola Electric in the discharge of employees to find the information provided by the company inadequate, the ministry wrote another letter on March 31 and asked that the company gave the number of vehicles he sold and invoiced in February, to which Ola Electric replied that it had fitted 9.206 in February. Of these orders, OLA told the ministry that about 7,820 vehicles were delivered to clients until April 3. For at least 15% of total invoiced vehicles in February, the delivery time stretched for more than a month. The company attributes the gap in invoices to the hit on its production process. “It is important to note that our routine registration process was disrupted during February due to a transition from the process. Generally, invoice in the sales of vehicles contains a vehicle identification number (VIN), which is a unique character code allocated by the manufacturer to each vehicle. Share price of OLA Electric fell by more than 17% against a 6% drop in the BSE car index. Topics #ola Electric Mobility Mint Specials