Bajaj's aggressive push threatens Ola's EV dominance as share slips below 30%

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. India’s electric vehicle (EV) market is no longer a startup playground. Bajaj Auto, a ‘legacy’ two-wheeler maker once far behind the EV race where Ola Electric and other startups were shaping the market, has nearly doubled its market share since the start of the fiscal in April.

Bajaj has positioned itself to challenge the market leader Ola Electric, whose grip on the market slipped to a precarious 27% in September 2024, down from nearly 50% in April and below 30% for the first time in a year, a Mint analysis of the government's vehicle registration data showed. Ola Electric has dominated India’s electric two-wheeler market for the past three years, but September 2024 marks a turning point. For the first time in 12 months, Ola’s market share dropped below 30%, a threshold it had previously dipped under only in September 2023.

The company’s dominance peaked in April 2024, when its market share surged past 50%. However, this high point has since been followed by a steady decline, culminating in its sub-30% share in September 2024. (See chart) September also brought another key shift: for the first time, the top three players—Ola Electric, Bajaj Auto, and TVS Motor—all held a market share between 20% and 27%.

Historically, the top two players had maintained dominance, while the third-ranked competitor consistently lagged below 20%. Bajaj Auto’s rise follows a strategy of waiting to charge at a market after upstarts invest heavily in creating the market. From holding just 11.5% of the market in April 2024, the company has surged to 21.5% by September, surpassing TVS to become the second-largest player in the Indian EV space.