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Cars24 posts first profitable quarter with Rs 20 crore EBITDA
Adjusted net revenue rose 37 per cent as losses narrowed 83 per cent.
MUMBAI: After years of burning rubber and cash in equal measure, Cars24 has finally found a profitable gear. The AI-led autotech platform reported its first-ever profitable quarter in Q4 FY26, posting Rs 20 crore in adjusted EBITDA and signalling a major turning point in India’s increasingly crowded used-car and mobility-tech market. But the company says this is no longer just about buying and selling second-hand cars.
Cars24 is positioning itself as something far broader, an AI-native ecosystem built around the full lifecycle of vehicle ownership, from financing and insurance to compliance, FASTag services and eventual resale.
And the numbers suggest that strategy is beginning to pay off.
For the second half of FY26, the company reported adjusted net revenue of Rs 760 crore, up 37 per cent year-on-year, while losses narrowed sharply by 83 per cent as operating leverage improved.
Cars24 also reported strong growth across multiple business verticals.
Retail gross merchandise value grew 35 per cent year-on-year and now contributes more than 60 per cent of total transaction value. Loan disbursals jumped 57 per cent to Rs 1,789 crore, while vehicle ownership services including insurance renewals, documentation and compliance tools expanded 11 times year-on-year.
International operations also moved closer to maturity. The UAE business delivered positive EBITDA margins, while Australia achieved operating profitability during Q4 FY26.
Underpinning much of the turnaround is automation.
Cars24 said core functions including pricing, inspections, customer interactions and risk assessment are now largely AI-led, helping revenue per employee rise 50 per cent during H2 FY26. The company is now targeting a further threefold improvement as its AI-driven operating model deepens.
The shift reflects a wider transition underway across India’s tech ecosystem, where startups once obsessed with scale-at-all-costs are increasingly being pushed towards sustainable economics and operational discipline.
Cars24 founder Vikram Chopra described the profitability milestone as the outcome of becoming “more useful to customers over time”, arguing that car ownership anxiety extends far beyond the initial purchase.
That thinking appears central to Cars24’s next chapter.
More than 3.8 crore users now engage with its platforms every month, with the company claiming that nearly one in ten Indian vehicle owners interacts with Cars24 services in some form.
The platform also says accessibility remains a key growth driver, with three out of four retail buyers on Cars24 being first-time car owners many supported through financing, inspection and trust-led services.
The company is now betting that the future of automotive commerce will not belong to businesses that merely facilitate transactions, but to platforms that remain embedded across years of ownership.
Because in India’s digital auto market now, selling the car may be the easy part. Keeping the customer for the next five years is where the real race begins.
