In FY18, self-driven car rental platform Zoomcar’s focus had been on launching Mahindra’s electric vehicles in several cities, starting and furthering its bicycle sharing services, as well as starting the process of exploring and planning to expand in 20 more countries within Asia and Africa.
Despite these endeavors costing hefty amounts, the company was able to, albeit slowly, improve on its financial reports for the fiscal year. The revenue clocked by Zoomcar grew by 31.67 per cent to Rs 158 crore from Rs 120 crore in FY17.
The expenses of the company increased at a slower pace by 21.78 per cent from Rs 225 crore to Rs 274 crore. Consequently, the losses increased by a controlled 10 per cent from Rs 105 crore to Rs 116 crore in the latest reported fiscal.
Partnering with Mahindra has benefited Zoomcar in several ways like enabling the latter to expand its EV usage while putting forth an environment-friendly image for itself.
From helping procure loans for the EVs and putting in direct funds, Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) has certainly help Zoomcar make headway in the self-driven eco-friendly car sharing and bike sharing segment.
Around the end of FY18, M&M had led a $40 million Series C round in the Greg Moran-led firm.
Zoomcar had started its business as a self-owned fleet of cars that were rented out to customers but then changed to an asset-light marketplace later.
The new model has certainly helped the company improve its financial statements, and widened the utility of the platform, for both suppliers and customers.
For its electric vehicle renting mechanism Zoomcar had also partnered with Tata Tigor last month, as per The Hindu report. By this year-end, the company expects to expand this facility in 20 more cities apart from Pune, where it is currently functional.
With these developments, and probably international expansion it remains to be seen the impact on the FY19 financial reports.
