Zoomcar Holdings, Inc. (Nasdaq: ZCAR) (“Zoomcar,” the “Company,” “we,” or “our”), the leading marketplace for car sharing in emerging markets, today reported select financial results for the third fiscal quarter ended December 31, 2023.
Management Commentary
“Our third fiscal quarter results capped a strong performance in our ongoing efficiency efforts as we achieved record gross profit and non-GAAP contribution profit while also paving the way for meaningful revenue growth over the next several quarters,” said Greg Moran, CEO and Co-Founder of Zoomcar. “The period also marked an important milestone with our public listing on Nasdaq following our successful business combination. As we look ahead to 2024, we expect a meaningful return to growth with materially improved profitability as we now have the right infrastructure in place to scale our operations efficiently.”
Zoomcar continues to make significant progress across the Company’s strategic priorities:
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Make vehicle Hosting mainstream: We’re focused on making vehicle Hosting just as popular as renting a Zoomcar, and we believe we’re making continuous progress to this end. Active vehicle listings hit 10.3K in FQ3 2023 as we continue to see double-digit supply growth across all major regions within India. In FQ3 2023, Zoomcar Hosts earned approximately $4 million. We’ll continue to raise awareness around Hosting through brand marketing investments and external third-party partnerships, while improving the Host’s onboarding journey and their overall experience on the platform.
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Perfect the core guest experience: We are intensely focused on technology-driven product innovation to improve the overall booking experience for our community of guests. In FQ3 2023 alone, we launched more than 20 new features and upgrades that, among others, help improve vehicle listing discoverability, improve price comparison capabilities, enhance sort/filter abilities within search, and revamp the payment experience at checkout.
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Expand beyond India: We are making steady progress in our efforts to expand beyond India. Egypt continues to scale bookings while building toward a sustainable non-GAAP contribution margin at the country level. In Indonesia we remain focused on building the appropriate mix of supply to attract higher volumes of demand to the platform on a consistent basis. We remain committed to further investment into these markets across 2024 and look forward to exploring additional opportunities for new country expansion later in the year.
Key Performance Indicators (“KPIs”)
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FQ3 2023 marked a record quarter in average transaction size across the Company. Zoomcar achieved a record average transaction size of over $75 per booking during the quarter. This performance showcases the platform’s ability to leverage our internal AI models to drive higher effective net pricing on behalf of our Hosts. Concurrently, the platform also continues to enjoy a significant expansion in our multi-day travel demand which drives effective trip durations higher.
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Booked days and booked guests have shown increased momentum in recent months. Total booked days and booked guests were 163.9K and 68.1K, respectively.
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We achieved a record in active vehicle listings in FQ3 2023. Our active vehicle listings reached 10.3K in FQ3 2023. We continue to witness growth across Indian metros while observing a balanced mix of vehicle segments associated with new listings. Consistent with earlier trends in 2023, we see a consistently larger mix of professional Hosts to the platform with the intent of leveraging the Zoomcar platform as a micro-entrepreneurship opportunity.
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Platform quality continues to improve at a steady pace. The platform’s average guest trip rating was 4.50 on a 5-point scale in FQ3 2023. We believe that this clearly demonstrates that our product focused approach to the customer experience on the Zoomcar platform is continuing to pay dividends. A constant focus on building tools to better improve in-trip communication between guests and Hosts represented a noticeable step function improvement in the overall in-trip experience for both sets of customers on the platform.
Fiscal Third Quarter 2023 Financial Results
Results compare 2023 fiscal third quarter end (December 31, 2023) to 2022 fiscal third quarter end (December 31, 2022) unless otherwise indicated. We are also presenting various financial metrics under U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and as adjusted (non-GAAP). A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP metrics appears at the end of this news release.
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Net revenue decreased 19% to $2.4 million, compared to $3.0 million in the same period last year. The decrease in revenue was primarily due to a lower number of days booked resulting in decreased gross billings as the Company prioritized higher-margin bookings in support of its cost reduction efforts.
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Gross profit increased to a record $0.3 million, compared to a gross loss of $0.3 million in the same period last year. The increase in gross profit was a result of trip fulfillment cost reductions driven by collective improvements in efficiency and lower Host accident-related reimbursements that consistently showed improvement over fiscal 2023.
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Operating expenses (excluding G&A costs) decreased 24%, to $2.2 million, compared to $2.9 million in the same period last year. The decrease in operating expenses was a result of a decrease in sales and marketing costs and technology and development costs.
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GAAP net income was $14.4 million, compared to an $8.7 million net loss in the same period last year. The improvement in net loss was the result of a one-time deSPAC transaction gains of $28.9 million associated with financial instrument conversions at fair market value. During the period, the Company also improved its gross margin profile and recorded a reduction in Host accident-related reimbursements.
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Gross booking value (“GBV”) was $6.5 million, compared to $8.3 million in the same period last year. The decrease in GBV was a result of our focus on booking level profitability (contribution margin) improvements at the expense of volume growth.
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Contribution profit (non-GAAP) was $0.2 million, compared to a contribution loss of $0.7 million in the same period last year, driven by reductions in cost of revenue due to the overall improvements in operational efficiency as well as lower host incentives and marketing costs. FQ3 2023 was the Company’s first full quarter of positive contribution profit and marked a consistent quarter-over-quarter effort to achieve this result.
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Adjusted EBITDA loss (non-GAAP) was $4.0 million, compared to $5.2 million in the same period last year. The improvement in adjusted EBITDA reflects broad-based cost reduction and efficiency initiatives that reduced cost of revenue, technology and development costs, and operating expenses.
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As of December 31, 2023, the Company had total negative working capital of $26.2 million, including $6.1 million in cash.
