Every few weekends, 21-year-old student Lavanya Jain opens BlaBlaCar an app to seek out transportation from Noida on the outskirts of New Delhi to his home in Kandhla, a small town in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. The 120-kilometer journey costs him about 500 kilos, or the equivalent of about $6. That’s a fraction of the £1,500-2,000, or $17-$23, he would pay for a private taxi.
“If you’re looking for a fast, efficient, affordable and convenient way to travel – and you like to talk – you should just check out BlaBlaCar,” Jain told TechCrunch, adding that he has used the app about 40-50 times in the last two years.
Jain is one of tens of millions of Indians who select long-distance carpooling as a cheaper and more sociable strategy to travel between cities. This rapid growth has made India the company’s largest market globally, with an estimated 20 million passengers this yr, an increase of just about 50% from the previous yr. Based on this forecast, BlaBlaCar’s Indian market will exceed the projected 18 million passengers in Brazil and its home market of France.
For a company that closed its India office in 2017 on account of poor traction, the turnaround is striking.
The growth got here largely without marketing or a local team, and was as an alternative driven by word of mouth, expanding mobile web access, and the rise of digital payments and automobile ownership among India’s middle class.
India is home to over 700 million smartphone users and saw a surge in digital payments, which they now account for over 99% of all transactions in the country.
At the center of this modification is the Indian government-backed Unified Payments Interface (UPI) system processed roughly 19.6 billion transfers value around £24.9 trillion (around $284 billion) in September alone. Car sales increased in parallel, reaching 4.73 million vehicles in 2024, in comparison with 3.87 million a yr earlier, an increase of 5.2% year-on-year and the highest level ever.
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Other aspects behind BlaBlaCar’s rapid growth in India include limited public transportation options in the country in comparison with a population of over 1.4 billion, and the continued expansion of road infrastructure that improves connectivity between smaller towns, rural areas and large cities.
“We have many examples of users saying, ‘I used to fly to my destination, take the train or not drive at all, and now I can actually drive. The journey takes three hours and is pleasant,'” Nicolas Brusson, co-founder and CEO of BlaBlaCar, said in an interview.
BlaBlaCar first entered India in early 2015, opening a local office in New Delhi. The company soon faced stiff competition from Uber and local rival Ola experimenting with carpooling services and promote them intensively. (Companies ultimately suspended these ride-sharing services during COVID-19 lockdowns.)
In an try and gain popularity, BlaBlaCar retired its local team in 2017. Despite this, the app continued to operate, and in 2022 its use began to extend again. Since then, the variety of users has skyrocketed from 4.3 million in 2022 to a projected 20 million this yr.
BlaBlaCar has averaged around 1.1 million monthly energetic users in India this yr, peaking at around 1.5 million in August. Roughly three quarters are passengers and the remaining 25% are drivers. According to the company, India currently accounts for roughly 33% of BlaBlaCar ridesharing passengers globally.
In terms of travel, BlaBlaCar saw its strongest growth in India, with 13.5 million trips accomplished as of September 30, up from 9.1 million in the same period last yr. Brazil remained barely ahead with 14 million trips this yr compared with 11.7 million in 2023, while France got here in third with 5.6 million trips, essentially unchanged from the previous yr.
“For us, the center of gravity has shifted from our initial markets in Western Europe towards places like Japan, Turkey and, increasingly, India,” Brusson told TechCrunch.
While BlaBlaCar doesn’t yet generate revenue in India, drivers using its platform earned about 713 million kilos (about $8 million) in August alone, the company said. In India, drivers earn on average about £390 (about $4) per seat, and the average journey distance is 180 kilometers (about 112 miles).
By comparison, average driver earnings are about 15 euros (about $17) in France and about 6.5 euros (about $7) in Brazil, although driving distances are broadly similar in India and Brazil and shorter than the French average of about 250 kilometers (about 155 miles). The difference, BlaBlaCar said, reflects lower local purchasing power and cost-sharing expectations in India.
Nearly 70% of BlaBlaCar’s Indian users are between the ages of 18 and 34, with roughly 95% of activity happening via the mobile app. About half of all journeys in India are made on the country’s 15 busiest intercity routes, with the other half happening from outside the top 150 corridors, demonstrating growing adoption beyond major metros and smaller cities. The busiest routes include Pune-Thane and Pune-Nashik in Maharashtra, Bengaluru-Chittoor in Andhra Pradesh and several others connecting medium-sized urban centers.
“No rush” to begin monetizing
Despite all this growth, BlaBlaCar has no plans to enable monetization in India any time soon.
“We are in no rush to introduce fees or generate revenue in India. We are focused on generating usage and we have replication because we have done it in several markets,” Brusson told TechCrunch.
Nevertheless, BlaBlaCar plans to open its local office in India and hire its first employees late this yr or early next yr, Brusson said.
BlaBlaCar does not see passenger transport platforms corresponding to Uber and Ola as its competitors in India. Brusson described them as “demand-driven” products, while BlaBlaCar, in his opinion, is “supply-driven.” Instead, the company sees people driving their very own cars or taking easily accessible trains and buses as the foremost substitutes.
Challenges on the path to success
BlaBlaCar in India still faces some challenges.
State laws regarding ridesharing are ambiguous, which has brought the service under scrutiny in some cities. Some users, including Jain, have complained that it could possibly be difficult to succeed in BlaBlaCar customer support, which often responds via automated messages. The company told TechCrunch it uses a “mixed model,” in which a hired local team handles most day-to-day queries and a smaller group at headquarters in Paris handles complex issues and quality control.
BlaBlaCar introduced an identity check feature in India, which allows users to confirm their identity against government-issued documents – a tool that was later rolled out globally. However, TechCrunch found that users can still book or post rides even if their identity has not been fully verified.
“This is an intentional design choice to make it easier for new members to interact with the platform,” the company said in response. “Identity verification is just one part of our broader trust and security framework; we don’t rely on a single feature, but on many multi-layered mechanisms that work together to build trust in our community.”
The company added that greater than 70% of trips in India are made with drivers who have passed government identity verification. BlaBlaCar also displays user reviews and rankings and verifies accounts via phone numbers and email addresses.
“We actively encourage members to complete all verification steps, as fully verified profiles – with photo and ID – significantly increase the chances of finding rideshare riders. Profiles without these elements tend to receive fewer bookings,” the company said.
Some BlaBlaCar users in India also report frustration when drivers or passengers cancel trips at the last minute, or sometimes even after reaching their meeting point. Additionally, the app lacks a live location sharing feature, which Jain noted limits the BlaBlaCar experience for people attempting to book rides on behalf of relations or friends.
BlaBlaCar has adapted its product to raised suit Indian users, introducing features corresponding to “meeting point logic” to make coordination easier. Unlike countries like France where there are designated rideshare zones, India lacks fixed pickup locations. Drivers and passengers often comply with meet at convenient locations along the route – for example, at a gas station or near a highway exit. The app now suggests and displays these locations using a combination of machine learning algorithms and user input, helping reduce detours and adapt to India’s ground infrastructure, the company says.
Globally, BlaBlaCar expects to serve around 150 million passengers this yr, including users of its bus services, which operate in markets corresponding to France but are not yet available in India. As BlaBlaCar expands its global reach, India’s unexpected growth has placed it at the heart of the company’s next phase of growth.