Ather Energy Touches Fresh All-Time High, HSBC Raises Target Price To INR 700

Shares of EV maker Ather Energy surged 7.8% to INR 678.50 to touch a fresh all-time high during the intraday trading on the BSE today after HSBC raised its target price (TP) for the company. 

The brokerage increased the TP for Ather to INR 700 from INR 600 earlier. The new TP translates to over 11% increase from Ather’s closing price yesterday (INR 629.55). 

HSBC estimates Ather’s sales volumes to consistently see an uptick on the back of increase in the number of stores. “As the company has opened more stores, volumes have consistently increased over the last couple of months, despite intensifying competition from incumbents,” it said in its report. 

HSBC expects Ather’s sales to zoom 22% QoQ in Q2 FY26 as retail sales in the quarter averaged 18K units. It also sees Ather’s EBITDA loss margin improving 110 basis points (bps) QoQ and 420 bps YoY due to better operating leverage.

“Ather has established itself as a strong brand in the EV segment, and we think the response for the EL platform should be better than we previously expected; thus we raise our estimates and our TP to INR 700 (from INR 600),” it added. 

Meanwhile, HSBC downgraded its rating for Ola Electric to ‘Reduce’ from ‘Hold’ earlier and cut TP to INR 45 from INR 55. 

The brokerage said that Ola Electric continued to lose market share amid intensifying competition despite catalysts that should have worked in its favour in Q2 FY26. “We expect Ola volume to decrease by 20% QoQ to 55K units as per Vahan registrations,” it said. 

However, it sees Ola Electric’s gross margin expanding 220 bps QoQ to 28% in Q2 due to cost optimisation from the Gen 3 platform. 

The brokerage also pointed out that Ola Electric’s fixed costs are higher than those of its competitors. 

“Ola is more vertically integrated in parts manufacturing (motors, batteries, etc.). The sales are done via COCO distribution models (company owned, company operated), which is working against Ola’s profitability in the low-volume environment,” it said. 

The report added that with intensifying competition, Ola might take much longer than its earlier estimated timeline to realise the benefit of operating leverage. 

It is pertinent to note that Ather surpassed Ola Electric last month in electric two wheeler registrations. While the former recorded registrations of 16,558 units in September, the latter saw a 35% MoM decline in E2W registrations to 12,223 units.

Shares of Ola Electric plunged 3.1% to INR 51 during the intraday trading today on the BSE. The stock ended the session 1.7% lower at INR 51.7. 

Meanwhile, shares of Ather gave up most of the early gains to end today’s session 0.8% higher at INR 634.75.