Nasdaq-listed Zoomcar Holdings narrowed its loss in the September quarter at $3.4 million from a loss of $12.4 million a year ago, translating into a net loss of $4.43 per share compared with $2568.8 per share loss in the year-ago quarter.

“By making customer experience our top priority, we’ve been able to organically boost guest repeat bookings and improve host retention,” said Hiroshi Nishijima, CEO, Zoomcar.

Headquartered in Bengaluru, Zoomcar provides a marketplace for car sharing in India.

Customer experience

The focus on customer experience allowed the company to optimise costs, particularly in marketing spend, cash incentives and discounts, driving a significant improvement to its contribution profit. Contribution profit reached a record high of $1.21 million, 54 per cent of revenue, compared with a loss of $0.12 million a year ago and $0.46 million in the previous quarter.

“With a stronger contribution margin, our primary goal is now to grow the number of bookings by bringing in more guests and achieving more frequent repeat usage,” Nishijima said.

The contribution margins remained strong despite shorter average booking durations.

The number of bookings rose 7 per cent to 105,160 sequentially, driven by 1.5 times increase in the guest repeat booking rate.

Cost optimisation

Cost optimisation efforts more than halved repair and maintenance costs, technology expenses (such as cloud services), while marketing costs fell 81 per cent on year.

Adjusted EBITDA loss decreased significantly to $1.47 million in the quarter ($3.87 million).

Average guest trip ratings saw a significant improvement, rising from 4.16 (out of 5) on March 31, 2024, to 4.70 on June 30, 2024.

Active high-quality cars (with an average rating of more than 4.5 out of 5) increased 6 per cent to 5,830 cars sequentially, signaling the improvement of host retention rate, the company said.