Every few weekends, 21-year-old student Lavanya Jain opens this blablakar App to find a lift from Noida on the outskirts of New Delhi to your home in Kandhla, a small town in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. The 120 kilometer journey cost him approximately ₹500, which is equivalent to approximately $6. This is a fraction of the ₹1,500-₹2,000, or $17-$23, that he would pay for a private taxi.
“If you’re looking for a fast, efficient, affordable, and comfortable way to travel — and you love to chat — you should basically check out BlaBlaCar,” Jain told TechCrunch. He said he has used the app about 40 to 50 times in the last two years.
Jain is one of millions of Indians who find long-distance carpooling a cheaper, more social way to travel between cities. That surge has made India the company’s biggest market worldwide, with an estimated 20 million passengers this year — up nearly 50% from a year ago. Based on that forecast, BlaBlaCar’s Indian market will surpass the estimated 18 million passengers in Brazil and its home market France.
For a company that closed its India office in 2017 after poor performance, the turnaround is surprising.
The growth has come largely without marketing or a local team, instead driven by word of mouth, expanding mobile internet access, and increased digital payments and car ownership among India’s middle class.
India’s home Over 700 million smartphone users And digital payments have seen rapid growth Its share now exceeds 99% of all transactions In the country.
At the center of that change is the Indian government-backed Unified Payments Interface (UPI) system, which Approximately 19.6 billion transfers were processed It was worth about ₹24.9 trillion (about $284 billion) in September alone. Car sales have increased rapidly, Reaching 4.73 million vehicles in 2024, up from 3.87 million a year earlier – a 5.2% increase year-over-year and an all-time high.
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Other factors behind BlaBlaCar’s rapid growth in India include the country’s limited public transport capacity relative to its population of over 1.4 billion and the steady expansion of road infrastructure that is improving connectivity between small towns, rural areas and major cities.
“We have lots of examples of users who say, ‘Before, I was flying to a destination or taking a train or not going at all — and now I can actually drive. It takes three hours, and it’s a pleasant trip,'” said Nicolas Bruson, co-founder and chief executive of BlaBlaCar, in an interview.
blablakar entered first India, setting up a local office in New Delhi in early 2015. The company soon faced stiff competition from both Uber and local rival Ola. Experiment with carpooling services And they are marketing them vigorously. (The companies will suspend those carpooling services during the COVID-19 lockdown.)
Struggling to gain popularity, BlaBlaCar withdrew its local team in 2017. Nevertheless, the app remained live – and in 2022, usage began to grow again. Since then, it has grown from 4.3 million users in 2022 to an estimated 20 million this year.
BlaBlaCar has averaged 1.1 million monthly active users in India this year, peaking at about 1.5 million in August. Roughly three-quarters are passengers, while the remaining 25% are drivers. About 33% of BlaBlaCar’s global carpool passengers now come from India, the company said.
In terms of trips, BlaBlaCar recorded its strongest growth in India, completing 13.5 million trips as of September 30, up from 9.1 million during the same period last year. Brazil was slightly ahead with 14 million trips this year compared with 11.7 million in 2023, while France came in third with 5.6 million trips, roughly flat from a year earlier.
“For us, the center of gravity has shifted away from our initial markets in Western Europe and toward places like Japan, Turkey, and increasingly India,” Bruson told TechCrunch.
Although BlaBlaCar does not yet generate revenue from India, drivers on its platform earned about ₹713 million (about $8 million) in August alone, the company said. With an average travel distance of 180 kilometers (about 112 miles), drivers in India earn on average about ₹390 (about $4) per seat.
By comparison, the average driver earns about €15 (about $17) in France and about €6.5 (about $7) in Brazil, even though travel distances in India and Brazil are roughly the same and shorter than France’s average of about 250 kilometers (about 155 miles). This gap reflects lower local purchasing power and cost-sharing expectations in India, BlaBlaCar said.
About 70% of BlaBlaCar’s Indian users are between the ages of 18 and 34, and about 95% of the activity happens through its mobile app. Nearly half of ridership in India comes from the country’s 15 busiest intercity routes, while the other half comes from outside the top 150 corridors – a testament to growing adoption beyond major metros and into smaller cities. The busiest routes are Pune-Thane and Pune-Nashik in Maharashtra, Bengaluru-Chittoor in Andhra Pradesh and many other routes connecting medium-sized urban centres.
“No rush” to start monetizing.
Despite all this growth, BlaBlaCar is not looking to enable monetization in India any time soon.
“We’re in no rush to introduce fees or generate revenue in India. We’re focused on generating usage, and we have playback because we’ve done so in multiple markets,” Bruson told TechCrunch.
Nonetheless, Bruson said, BlaBlaCar plans to set up its local office in India and make the first hires by the end of this year or early next year.
BlaBlaCar does not see ride-hailing platforms like Uber and Ola as its competitors in India. Bruson described them as “demand-based” products, while BlaBlaCar, he said, is “supply-based”. Instead, the company sees people driving their own cars or choosing readily available trains and buses as its main options.
Challenges on the way to success
BlaBlaCar still faces some challenges in India.
State regulations regarding carpooling are vague, which has brought the service under scrutiny in some cities. Some users, including Jain, have complained that it can be difficult to reach BlaBlaCar’s customer support, which often replies with automated messages. The company told TechCrunch it operates a “hybrid model”, with an outsourced local team handling most of the day-to-day queries and a small group at its Paris headquarters managing complex issues and quality checks.
BlaBlaCar launched an ID check feature in India to verify users’ identity through government-issued documents – a tool that was later introduced globally. However, TechCrunch found that users can still book or publish rides even if their ID check is incomplete.
“This is a deliberate design choice to make it easier for new members to join the platform,” the company said in response. “ID verification is just one part of our broader trust and security framework; we do not rely on any one feature, but rather on multiple layered mechanisms that work together to build trust within our community.”
The company said more than 70% of trips in India are made with drivers who have completed government ID verification. BlaBlaCar also displays user reviews and ratings and verifies accounts via phone numbers and email addresses.
The company said, “We actively encourage members to complete all verification steps, as fully verified profiles – with photos and ID – substantially increase the chances of finding carpoolers. Profiles lacking these elements receive fewer bookings.”
Some BlaBlaCar users in India complain of frustration when drivers or passengers cancel trips at the last minute, sometimes even after reaching the meeting point. Additionally, the app lacks a live location-sharing feature, which Jain said limits the use of BlaBlaCar for those trying to book a ride on behalf of family members or friends.
BlaBlaCar has better adapted its product to Indian users, and introduced features like “meeting-point logic” to make coordination easier. Unlike countries like France, where designated carpooling zones exist, India lacks fixed pickup zones. The driver and passenger usually agree to meet at convenient locations en route – for example, a petrol station, or near a highway exit. The company said the app now suggests and displays these locations using a mix of machine-learning algorithms and user input, helping to reduce detours and align with India’s ground infrastructure.
Globally, BlaBlaCar is expected to reach about 150 million passengers this year, including users of its bus services, which operate in markets such as France but are not yet available in India. As BlaBlaCar expands its global footprint, India’s unprecedented growth has placed it at the center of the company’s next phase of growth.
