"Charging electric scooters is as simple as charging mobile phones": Okinawa's Jeetender Sharma

The founder and MD of Okinawa feels the entry of Ola and expansion of Bajaj will help generate awareness about electric scooters in the country and grow the market.

Haryana-headquartered Okinawa Autotech, which has been selling electric scooters in India since 2016, has just launched its biggest advertising campaign. As far as the electric scooter market goes, only Hero Electric, the market leader, is ahead of Okinawa.

In its campaign, Okinawa addresses the issue of charging, load, speed and performance and maintenance. All the films highlight that Okinawa scooters can travel 100 km at just Rs 14. Jeetender Sharma, founder and MD of Okinawa, is of the view that the industry needs to educate people about the benefits of electric scooters. He says there is no question of competition, and he isn't worried about the SoftBank-backed Ola's entry into the electric scooter market.

Besides Ola and Hero, Bajaj and TVS are also making sizeable investments in the electric scooter business. All of them have a strong marketing budgets. "The more people advertise, the more units we will sell," says a confident Sharma. 

Okinawa claims to have sold 4,467 units in April 2021, 5,649 units in May, and 5,860 units in June. Most of its customers reside in the southern states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, and also Maharashtra in the west. Okinawa electric scooters witness highest demand in cities like Bengaluru, Kanchipuram, Nellore and Pune.

What is the biggest challenge for electric scooters today? "Awareness," says Sharma. He says there are anxiety issues that need to be addressed and the benefits of electric scooters also need to be explained to people. In an interview with afaqs!, he talks about the electric scooter market, Okinawa's challenges...

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