In an interview, Mitull Batra, CEO of Udaan E Vehicles, shares insights on the company’s strategies driving 80-90% growth year-over-year. He highlights Udaan’s success through an expanded manufacturing base, a strengthened dealer network, and a focus on customer-centric services. With new products in the pipeline, Udaan aims to hit ₹300 crore in revenue this year.
Read the full interview here:
Udaan E Vehicles has experienced 80-90% year-over-year growth since COVID-19. What key strategies have driven this success?
Mitull: Owing to the adoption of a multi-faceted approach, Udaan E-Vehicles have been able to achieve unprecedented growth since COVID-19. After the pandemic, we shifted gears with a focus on covering the entire value chain of developing, distributing, and servicing our products. We strengthened our research with enhanced resources and talent while marketing teams worked extensively to build the brand, appoint dealers, and broaden the coverage across the country. We also ramped up our distribution network significantly in the last couple of years and by further strengthening our servicing facilities, we are setting new industry benchmarks on customer-centricity. Udaan is also aware of stakeholders’ business interests and by creating a win-win situation for all, we have taken the entire ecosystem on the path of progress and prosperity.
Your team has expanded significantly since 2017. What factors have led to this rapid growth in the workforce?
Mitull: The robust demand, expansion drives, and new model launches are the primary reasons behind the significant expansion that our team has seen since 2017. We have been aggressively expanding our footprints across the country and to realize the dream of exponential growth, the hiring drives have been undertaken at regular intervals. Udaan has in-house design, development, manufacturing, and assembly facilities, the requirement of personnel to run these facilities is also on the higher side. In addition, we regularly recruit for quality control, testing, and administrative tasks as the demand is steadily rising across customer segments and product categories.
With many new entrants in the EV market, how is Udaan positioning itself to stay competitive?
Mitull: Our customer-centricity along with a strong focus on creating, communicating, and delivering superior value to the target market set us apart from others. Unlike rivals, we have complete control of our value chain, enabling us to offer innovative, reliable, and value-for-money products to our customers. We have also expanded considerably in terms of dealership and servicing network and this coupled with a wide range of products across different categories and price points makes us a one-stop solution for both commercial and passenger segments. In sum, Udaan is a name that has carved a place owing to its superior products, prompt services, and complete piece-of-mind ownership experience.
How will expanding your manufacturing unit impact production and meet growing market demand?
Mitull: To keep the growth momentum intact, we have been expanding our manufacturing capabilities and the dealership network. This is pretty much required to power our expansion plans and bring innovative products to the customers at regular intervals. The expansion of the production facility is also needed to support our upcoming foray into different product categories in passenger and cargo segments. We are excited to launch our electric vehicles in the commercial four-wheeler and Semi-truck segment in the coming months and up gradation of our current facilities will help us to deliver world-class products to the customers.
Can you share more about your upcoming Electric Three-Wheeler Auto Rickshaw and its market potential?
Mitull: In India, 3-wheeler is the second largest contributor to EV sales with total units sold in H1 2024 standing at 3,13,967 units. This translates into 27% YoY growth with the country recording dispatch of 2,46,850 units in the same period last year. We already surpassed China to become the world’s largest Electric 3-wheeler market in 2023 and our upcoming Electric Three-Wheeler Auto Rickshaw is aimed to leverage this growing demand. Estimates suggest that electric 3-wheeler will constitute up to 70% of the total 3-wheeler sales in India by 2030. The future of mobility is electric and by focusing on the 3-wheeler segment covering both passenger and commercial categories, we would like to become part of the country’s success story.
What strategies are you using to reach your projected ₹300 crore revenue this year?
Mitull: We are focusing on a three-pronged strategy to reach the target revenue of Rs 300 Cr this year. The first facet of our strategy is to develop new products to diversify our portfolio across segments and categories. Our upcoming launch in both passenger and commercial categories covering 4-wheeler and Semi-truck will play a crucial role in our target achievement. Secondly, we are ramping up our dealership and service network so that customers can access facilities without any reach problems. The third focus of our strategy is to infuse fresh talent into the company besides reskilling/upskilling our existing staff to deliver higher-order benefits to our customers. All these efforts will help us to make the most of the emerging opportunities in the electric mobility space and take the growth of the company to the next level.
