WTiCabs is sticking to its ambitious ₹1,000 crore revenue target for FY26 even as its recent Dubai acquisition has slipped into losses, exposing the risks of the company’s rapid international and B2C expansion strategy.
The NSE SME-listed mobility company, which raised nearly ₹95 crore in February 2024, entered Dubai through the acquisition of a limousine business on March 1, 2026, building on a 600-car self-drive fleet it had scaled within 18 months. But within weeks, geopolitical tensions in West Asia disrupted demand, pushing utilisation levels down to nearly 50% and leaving a large part of the fleet idle while fixed operating costs continued.
The result has been a monthly loss of nearly ₹1 crore, with the company burning 200–300 AED per vehicle every month due to parking, manpower and electricity costs.
“It was profitable till February-March. Then losses started and cars began coming back,” said Ashok Vashist, CEO of Wise Travel India Ltd (WTiCabs). “Nearly 50% of the fleet was lying idle. But the costs remained the same.” Despite the setback, Vashist says the company remains on track to cross ₹1,000 crore in revenue this fiscal, driven by its core corporate mobility business in India, premium fleet partnerships and fare increases across the market.
The Dubai business, initially expected to contribute nearly ₹50 crore in FY26 revenue, is now projected to deliver only ₹25–30 crore. Even so, Vashist is not pulling back from the market and believes the worst phase may already be over as utilisation begins recovering. “In the last seven days, nearly 35–60% of the idle fleet has gone back on the road,” he said.
Revenue growth outpaces profit
From ₹250 crore in FY23, WTiCabs’ revenue rose to ₹414 crore in FY24, while FY25 revenue stood in the ₹523–685 crore range. Consolidated H1 FY26 revenue alone touched nearly ₹380 crore, with the company reporting operating profit of around ₹44 crore at a margin of about 12%. Net profit, however, has remained largely flat, ₹23.8 crore in FY24 versus ₹23.35 crore in FY25, indicating that topline growth has not yet translated into stronger earnings leverage.
The Dubai operation marks one of the first major stress tests for WTiCabs’ strategy outside the relative stability of long-term corporate transportation contracts in India.
The company currently operates around 14,000 vehicles across more than 130 cities, servicing over 500 corporates including Amazon, Microsoft, Coca-Cola and American Express. Another key growth driver has been Uber Black, where WTiCabs supplies nearly half the premium fleet across key metros. “Almost 50% of the fleet is provided by WTiCabs to Uber,” Vashist said. “Whatever increase you will see will largely come because of fare increases, not because the overall market size is growing,” he said.
EV push meets operational reality
Alongside expansion challenges, WTiCabs is also reassessing parts of its EV strategy. An early fleet adopter of EVs, the company had partnered with Tata Motors in 2019 to deploy Tigor EVs for employee transportation.
But Vashist says premium EV operators such as BYD and MG currently offer better range and operational economics for high-utilisation fleet applications, and “in the premium segment value realisations are higher”. He indicated a shift towards the top end of the market.
WTiCabs currently operates around 300–400 EVs and plans to scale that number to over 1,000 by 2030, largely driven by ESG-linked corporate demand. However, this EV expansion is likely to be calibrated rather than a full-fledged push.
The company is now targeting ₹2,000 crore in revenue by 2030, with international operations expected to contribute 10–15% of business over time.
“I built my career during the 2008 crisis, and WTiCabs itself was started when very few people were expanding,” Vashist said. “This cycle always continues,” he added.