NEW DELHI: Ola Electric, India’s leading e-scooter manufacturer, witnessed a 9% drop in its stock price on Monday following a public dispute between the company’s founder Bhavish Aggarwal, and a well-known comedian Kunal Kamra.
The controversy began when Indian comedian Kunal Kamra shared an undated photograph with his 2.4 million followers on X, depicting numerous e-scooters covered in dust outside an Ola showroom.This image sparked a flood of online complaints from other dissatisfied customers.
Despite holding a 27% market share in India’s e-scooter market, Ola has experienced a 43% decline in its stock price since its impressive stock market debut in August. The company has been facing mounting frustration on social media platforms due to its service quality, and analysts have expressed concerns about its declining market share, which has been on a downward trend for five consecutive months amidst intensifying competition and service-related issues.
Commenting on the impact of the recent social media dispute, Kranthi Bathini, director of equity strategy at Wealthmills Securities, stated, “Consumer complaints on social media do have (an) impact on the company … The current social media spat is going to have a medium to short-term impact.” Ola did not provide a comment in response to a request made on Monday.
What was the controversy?
It all started when comedian Kunal Kamra recently shared an image on social media depicting Ola Electric scooters covered in dust outside a dealership, likely awaiting servicing. In response, Ola Electric’s CEO, Bhavish Aggarwal, accused Kamra of accepting payment to post critical content about the company on X (formerly Twitter).
Aggarwal challenged Kamra, stating, “Since you care so much Kunal Kamra, come and help us out! I’ll even pay more than you earned for this paid tweet or from your failed comedy career.”
He also mentioned that Ola is rapidly expanding its network and that backlogs will be resolved promptly.
Kamra retaliated by referring to Aggarwal as an “arrogant, substandard pr*ck,” to which the CEO responded, “Chot lagi? Dard hua? Aaja service center. Bahut kaam hai. I will pay better than your flop shows pay you.” Aggarwal once again invited the comedian to join an Ola Electric service center.