Meet Zoomcar - The Leading Marketplace For Car Sharing In Emerging Markets

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Below is our recent interview with Greg Moran, CEO & Co-Founder Zoomcar:

Q: Greg, what is Zoomcar?

A: Zoomcar is the leading marketplace for car sharing in emerging markets, with over 20,000 cars on its technology-driven platform across India, Southeast Asia, and Egypt. Zoomcar empowers host entrepreneurs to safely and easily share their cars to earn additional passive income. Guests in the Zoomcar community enjoy a diverse, affordable selection of cars to unlock memorable driving experiences with friends and family. Founded in 2013 and headquartered in Bengaluru, India, Zoomcar employs over 300 people and operates in 50 cities across India, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Egypt. Uri Levine, the co-founder of mobility unicorns Waze and Moovit, currently serves as Zoomcar’s Chairman of the Board.

Q: Any highlights on your recent announcement?

A: Zoomcar has witnessed steady growth since its launch, with more individuals hosting their cars on the platform to earn an additional passive income. On average, Zoomcar hosts earn more than Rs 50,000 in a month, and several hosts have earned more than Rs 3 lakhs in the last 6 months. The marketplace now also offers a selection of luxury cars from Audi, Mercedes and Mini Cooper, and new 7-seater vehicles like the Tata Safari and MG Hector Plus. Luxury car hosts have earned more than Rs 5 lakhs on Zoomcar in the last 6 months, earning on average more than Rs 70,000 a month.

Q: Can you give us more insights into your offering?

A: Zoomcar’s unique platform facilitates car sharing. Owners of personal, private or non-transport vehicles (hosts) can list their vehicles on the platform, and eligible users (guests) can book these vehicles for personal use. Hosting on Zoomcar is easy: hosts can sign up for free, and get a complimentary car health checkup during the on-boarding process. The car is then fitted with a safety monitoring device and is then ready to list on the platform and earn income for the host once the car starts receiving bookings. Hosts have complete flexibility to share their car whenever it’s convenient. Zoomcar directly credits earnings to the hosts’ bank account. Through its host program, Zoomcar seeks to transform idle vehicle capacity by leasing private vehicles to create better utilization and dramatically reduce on-road congestion and urban air pollution in cities.

Q: What can we expect from your company in next 6 months? What are your plans?

A: It’s really about how we can bring more and more unique customized, proprietary vehicles and experiences to the end user. And that’s really a very powerful engine for growth. Zoomcar’s car sharing marketplace is positioned to cut across emerging markets, and we expect to target future expansion opportunities in markets which include SE Asia, Latin America, MENA, and Sub-Saharan Africa. We see a vast addressable market, totalling approximately $90 billion annually by 2025, due to current average private car ownership levels of less than 10% across, combined with an underutilized vehicle base of nearly 200 million cars in our core markets.

Q: What is the best thing about your company that people might not know about

A: One thing that’s quite interesting about Zoomcar in our market position is that we were a first mover and really an early leader in the markets that we operate across India and Southeast Asia and in Egypt and so because of that we have significant market share such that we have not had to engage in meaningful discount wars or price wars where we’ve had to incur significant cash burn. So the majority of our cash burn historically has been more anchored around certain technology investments and in certain brand awareness, that has actually made us significantly more efficient. We have our own sort of custom hardware that we fit in all vehicles to allow for additional safety and security monitoring from remote digital entry through a key-less entry system through your smart phone which is very, very powerful along with having real time driver behavior monitoring and also the ability to have a remote engine and mobilization capability. So more peace of mind for that vehicle owner and host, and then also more seamlessness and more friction-less experiences for the guest.

Last Updated on March 8, 2023