India, where BlaBlaCar once exited, is now its largest market.

Every few weekends, Lavanya Jain, a 21-year-old student, opens the BlaBlaCar app to find a lift from Noida, a suburb of New Delhi, to her home in Kandla, a small town in northern India’s Uttar Pradesh state. The 120-kilometre journey costs about 500 rupees, or the equivalent of about $6. This is a fraction of the ₹1,500 to ₹2,000, or $17 to $23, he pays for a private taxi.

“Basically, anyone who is looking for a fast, efficient, affordable and comfortable way to travel and likes to chat should check out BlaBlaCar,” Jain told TechCrunch, adding that he has used the app about 40-50 times in the past two years.

Jains are among the millions of Indians who are turning to long-distance carpooling as a cheaper and more social way to travel between cities. The surge has made India the company’s biggest market in the world, with an estimated 20 million passengers this year, an increase of almost 50% from a year ago. Based on this projection, BlaBlaCar’s Indian market will exceed the projected 18 million passengers in Brazil and its home base of France.

This turnaround is surprising for the company, which closed its India office in 2017 due to poor business performance.

Growth has largely been achieved without marketing or a local team, and has instead been driven by word of mouth, expanding mobile internet access, and increased digital payments and car ownership among India’s middle class.

India has over 700 million smartphone users and digital payments are rapidly increasing, now accounting for over 99% of all transactions in the country.

At the heart of that change is India’s government-backed Unified Payments Interface (UPI) system, which processed some 19.6 billion remittances worth about 24.9 trillion rupees (about $284 billion) in September alone. Car sales increased in parallel, reaching 4.73 million units in 2024 from 3.87 million units the previous year, an increase of 5.2% year-on-year and a record high.

Other factors behind BlaBlaCar’s rapid growth in India include limited public transport capacity compared to a population of over 1.4 billion people, and steady expansion of road infrastructure that improves connectivity between small towns, rural areas, and large cities.

“We have a lot of examples of users saying, ‘Before, I would fly to a destination, take a train, or not go at all, but now I can actually drive. It takes three hours, but it’s a comfortable drive,'” Nicolas Brusson, co-founder and CEO of BlaBlaCar, said in an interview.

BlaBlaCar first entered India in early 2015, establishing a local office in New Delhi. The company soon faced stiff competition from Uber and local rival Ola, which were experimenting with carpooling and marketing heavily. (Both companies have decided to temporarily suspend their ride-sharing services during the lockdown due to the new coronavirus infection.)

BlaBlaCar struggled to regain momentum and exited the local team in 2017. Still, the app survived, and usage began to spike again in 2022. Since then, user numbers have skyrocketed from 4.3 million in 2022 to an expected 20 million this year.

BlaBlaCar has averaged about 1.1 million monthly active users in India this year, reaching about 1.5 million in August. About three-quarters are passengers, and the remaining 25% are drivers. According to the company, India currently accounts for about 33% of BlaBlaCar’s global rideshare passengers.

In terms of travel, BlaBlaCar recorded the highest growth in India, with 13.5 million trips completed as of September 30, up from 9.1 million in the year-ago period. Brazil was slightly ahead with 14 million trips this year compared to 11.7 million in 2023, while France came in third with 5.6 million trips, almost unchanged from the previous year.

“For us, the center of gravity is shifting from the original Western European market to regions like Japan, Turkey, and now India,” Brusson told TechCrunch.

Although BlaBlaCar is not yet generating revenue from India, drivers using its platform earned about 713 million rupees (about $8 million) in August alone, the company said. In India, drivers who travel an average distance of 180 kilometers (about 112 miles) earn an average of about 390 ₹ (about $4) per seat.

By comparison, drivers in France earn an average of about 15 euros (about $17) and in Brazil about 6.5 euros (about $7), even though travel distances in India and Brazil are about the same and shorter than France’s average of about 250 kilometers (about 155 miles). According to BlaBlaCar, this difference reflects lower local purchasing power and cost-sharing expectations in India.

Nearly 70% of BlaBlaCar’s Indian users are between 18 and 34 years old, and around 95% of their activities are done through the mobile app. Roughly half of all rides in India are taken along the country’s 15 busiest intercity routes, with the remaining half coming from outside the top 150 routes. This is evidence of increasing adoption in smaller cities beyond major cities. Some of the busiest routes include Pune-Thane and Pune-Nashik in Maharashtra, Bengaluru-Chittoor in Andhra Pradesh, and several other routes connecting medium-sized urban centres.

There’s no need to rush to start monetizing

Despite all this growth, BlaBlaCar has no intention of enabling monetization in India anytime soon.

“We’re not in a hurry to introduce fees or generate revenue in India. We’re focused on generating usage, and we’re doing that in several markets, so the rebirth is possible,” Brusson told TechCrunch.

Nevertheless, BlaBlaCar is setting up a local office in India and expects to hire its first employees by the end of this year or early next year, Brusson said.

BlaBlaCar does not consider ride-hailing platforms such as Uber and Ola as competitors in India. Brusson explained that these products are “demand-driven” products, whereas BlaBlaCar is a “supply-driven” product. Instead, the company believes people are driving their own cars or using readily available trains and buses as the main alternatives.

Challenges on the road to success

BlaBlaCar still faces some challenges in India.

Ambiguous state regulations regarding carpooling have brought the service under scrutiny in some cities. Some users, including Jain, have complained that it can be difficult to contact BlaBlaCar’s customer support. BlaBlaCar customer support often responds with automated messages. The company told TechCrunch it operates a “mixed model.” An outsourced local team handles most day-to-day inquiries, while a small group at its Paris headquarters manages complex issues and quality checks.

BlaBlaCar has introduced an ID check feature in India that verifies the user’s identity through government-issued documents. This tool was later rolled out globally. However, TechCrunch found that users can still book and publish rides even if their ID checks are incomplete.

In response, the company said, “This is an intentional design choice to make it easier for new members to join the platform.” “Identity verification is just one part of our broader trust and safety framework. Rather than relying on a single feature, we rely on multiple layered mechanisms that work together to build trust within our community.”

The company added that more than 70% of trips in India are made by drivers who have completed government ID verification. BlaBlaCar also displays user reviews and ratings and verifies your account through your phone number and email address.

“We actively encourage our members to complete all verification steps, as a fully verified profile with a photo and ID greatly increases the likelihood of finding a rideshare. Profiles lacking these elements tend to receive fewer bookings,” the company said.

Some BlaBlaCar users in India have also complained that drivers and passengers cancel their trips at the last minute, sometimes even after reaching the meeting point. Additionally, Jain pointed out that the app lacks a live location sharing feature, which limits the use of BlaBlaCar for people looking to book rides on behalf of family or friends.

BlaBlaCar has tailored its product to Indian users and introduced features such as ‘Meeting Point Logic’ to make adjustments easier. Unlike countries such as France, where there are designated carpool zones, India does not have fixed pick-up and drop-off areas. Drivers and passengers typically agree to meet at a convenient location along the route, such as at a gas station or near a highway exit. The app now uses a combination of machine learning algorithms and user input to suggest and display these locations, helping reduce detours and align with India’s ground infrastructure, the company said.

BlaBlaCar expects to reach around 150 million passengers globally this year, including those on its bus services, which operate in markets such as France but are not yet available in India. As BlaBlaCar expands its global footprint, the unexpected rise of India places BlaBlaCar at the center of the company’s next phase of growth.