Spiro eyes India expansion

February 04, 2025

From the newsletter

Spiro, Africa’s leading electric motorcycle manufacturer, is seeking to launch its e-bikes in India. The company has been preparing its entry into India for a while. In January 2024, it opened a Global technology Centre in Pune, a city in India’s Maharashtra State. Spiro has been testing its e-bikes in India to gauge their performance before the launch.  

  • The e-bikes that Spiro will be selling in India will be made locally. In November 2024, the company appointed Indian e-bike manufacturer PG Electroplast Ltd as its exclusive manufacturing partner in the country.  

  • The firm has already assembled a team of 78 employees at the Pune office. Their focus is mainly to develop cutting-edge software solutions and enhance the firm’s IoT and telematics capabilities. 35% of Spiro’s hires in India are engineers while the rest are in operations, information technology, business development and quality assurance.

More details

  • Spiro has so far assembled more than 22,000 electric motorcycles to date. It operates in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Benin, Rwanda and Togo. The company is planning to expand its operations to Tanzania, Ghana and Cameroon. 

  • Under Spiro’s partnership with India’s PG Electroplast, the latter will oversee the establishment and operation of production facilities for electric vehicles, lithium-ion batteries, and related components. Meanwhile, Spiro will focus on research and development, marketing, sales, and distribution of the EV products manufactured by the Indian firm.

  • Unlike in Africa where it is the largest EV company, Spiro will find a very different market in India, which has a population of more than 1.4 billion people. This is larger than Africa’s combined population of more than 1.3 million people.

  • The motorcycle market in India is huge. More than 15 million units are sold annually. However, the penetration of electric motorcycles remains low. Only 4.4% of motorcycles sold in India in 2023 were electric.

  • Spiro will face stiff competition in India. The country has more than 380 EV manufacturers. 78 of them make electric motorcycles. The biggest names in the market segment include Ola Electric, Ather Energy, Revolt Motors, TVS Motor Company, Bajaj Auto and Okinawa Auto.

  • The Indian electric motorcycle market is however growing rapidly, which offers a great opportunity for new entrants such as Spiro to grow. Electric motorcycle sales jumped 36 times in just five years from 28,000 in 2019 to 1 million in 2024.

  • Spiro has raised significant capital to bolster its expansion in Africa and the world. In May 2024, the company signed a $50 million debt facility from the African Export-Import Bank for expansion. In August 2023, the firm had also signed a $63 million debt from Societe Generale to expand its footprint in Benin and Togo. 

Our take

  • Spiro's expansion to India presents unique opportunities for the company, but also comes with its challenges. Both Africa and India are experiencing a boom in demand for electric motorcycles. In this sense, Spiro should aim to replicate its successful African model in India. It however has to adapt to the local preferences of Indian motorists to stand out from the crowded market.

  • The electric motorcycle market in India is more mature compared to Africa. Companies like Bajaj and Hero MotoCorp have already established a presence with their electric scooters and motorcycles. For Spiro to succeed in India, it must be competitive both from a pricing perspective but also offer quality and reliability.

  • Spiro is the latest in a growing list of African companies that are reaching beyond the continent. Several African companies, especially tech startups like Paga (Nigeria), Swvl (Egypt), and Lidya (Nigeria), have expanded into markets in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. African companies should continue to innovate and evolve to be competitive on the global stage. This will allow them to join lucrative markets beyond the continent’s borders.