Every few weekends, 21-year-old student Lavanya Jain opens the BlaBlaCar app to find a lift from Noida on the outskirts of New Delhi to his home in Kandhla, a small town in northern India’s Uttar Pradesh state. The 120-kilometer journey costs him about ₹500, the equivalent of about $6. That’s a fraction of the ₹1,500–₹2,000, or $17–$23, he would pay for a private cab.
“If you’re looking for a fast, efficient, affordable, and comfortable way to travel — and you like to chat — you should basically check out BlaBlaCar,” Jain told TechCrunch, adding that he has used the app some 40 to 50 times over the past two years.
Jain is one of millions of Indians turning to long-distance carpooling as a cheaper, more social way to travel between cities. That surge has made India the company’s largest market worldwide, with an estimated 20 million passengers this year — up almost 50% from a year earlier. Based on that forecast, BlaBlaCar’s India market would surpass the 18 million passengers projected in Brazil and its home market of France.
For a company that shut its India office in 2017 after poor traction, the turnaround is striking.
Growth has come largely without marketing or a local team, driven instead by word of mouth, expanding mobile internet access, and the rise of digital payments and car ownership among India’s middle class.
Image Credits:Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch
India is home to more than 700 million smartphone users and has seen a sharp rise in digital payments, which now account for over 99% of all transactions in the country.
At the center of that shift is the Indian government-backed Unified Payments Interface (UPI) system, which processed about 19.6 billion transfers worth around ₹24.9 trillion (roughly $284 billion) in September alone. Car sales have climbed in tandem, reaching 4.73 million vehicles in 2024, up from 3.87 million a year earlier — a 5.2% year-on-year increase and an all-time high.
Techcrunch event
San Francisco
|
October 27-29, 2025
Other factors behind BlaBlaCar’s rapid growth in India include the country’s limited public transport capacity relative to its over 1.4 billion population, and the steady expansion of road infrastructure that is improving connectivity between smaller towns, rural areas, and major cities.
“We have lots of examples from users who say, ‘Before, I was flying to a destination or taking the train or not going at all — and now I can actually drive. It takes three hours, and it’s a pleasant ride,’” said Nicolas Brusson, co-founder and chief executive of BlaBlaCar, in an interview.
BlaBlaCar first entered India in early 2015, setting up a local office in New Delhi. The company soon faced stiff competition from Uber and local rival Ola, both of which were experimenting with carpooling services and marketing them heavily. (The companies would ended up suspending those carpooling services during the COVID-19 lockdowns.)
Struggling to gain traction, BlaBlaCar withdrew its local team in 2017. Still, the app remained live — and in 2022, usage began to surge again. Since then, it has skyrocketed from 4.3 million users in 2022 to a projected 20 million this year.
BlaBlaCar has averaged about 1.1 million monthly active users in India this year, peaking at around 1.5 million in August. Roughly three-quarters are passengers, while the remaining 25% are drivers. India now accounts for about 33% of BlaBlaCar’s global carpool passengers, the company said.
BlaBlaCar Co-founder anD CEO Nicolas BrussonImage Credits:BlaBlaCar
Trip-wise, BlaBlaCar recorded its strongest growth in India, with 13.5 million trips completed as of September 30, up from 9.1 million during the same period last year. Brazil remained slightly ahead, with 14 million trips this year compared with 11.7 million in 2023, while France ranked third with 5.6 million trips, broadly flat from a year earlier.
“For us, the center of gravity has shifted away from our initial markets in Western Europe toward places like Japan, Turkey — and increasingly, India,” Brusson told TechCrunch.
Although BlaBlaCar does not yet …