Electric two-wheeler maker Ather Energy is planning to scale up its retail network to 700 Experience Centres (ECs) across India by the end of FY 2026. As of March 31, Ather had 351 ECs in India, along with 24 in Nepal and Sri Lanka. Around 46% of these are in South India, where Ather first built its base.
The recently listed company said the expansion comes at a time when it is seeing strong momentum for its EVs with its family scooter Rizta recently crossing 1 lakh units in retail sales within a year of its launch.
“Rizta’s phenomenal success has opened up new markets and brought a much larger set of family buyers into the Ather ecosystem. We’re seeing demand coming in from cities where our footprint was previously limited, and that gives us the confidence to scale faster,” said Ravneet Singh Phokela, Chief Business Officer, Ather Energy.
Electric two-wheeler sales rose nearly 30% year-on-year to 100,266 units in May. Among the top players, TVS Motor, Bajaj Auto, Ather Energy and Hero MotoCorp saw their monthly sales more than double in May while Ola Electric registered a sharp decline of 51% in sales, according to VAHAN data.
Ather said that with Rizta opening up new demand pockets, it will now triple its store count in the north and continue to expand in the east and west markets by the end of FY26.
Rizta alone now contributes to nearly 60% of Ather’s total sales. Ather said that Rizta has increased its sales across key states including Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Chhattisgarh and boosted market share in regions where the brand previously had a smaller presence.
Ather currently has two manufacturing plants in Hosur, Tamil Nadu, one each for vehicle assembly and battery manufacturing, and an upcoming third manufacturing facility in Bidkin, AURIC, Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar, Maharashtra. The upcoming facility in Maharashtra is expected to further increase Ather’s total manufacturing capacity across all facilities to 1.42 million electric two-wheelers per year.