As 2020 ends….

What a year!  The BlaBlaCar community, like many of us around the world, had a trying year. But irrespective of a near complete shutdown in the Spring, it rose again and allowed millions of people to keep moving, and to do so safely and responsibly. The resilience and solidarity shown by the BlaBlaCar community have no common measure. 

From a business standpoint, while most transport networks struggled from being both financially weighed-down by idle assets or contracts, or by the challenge of rebooting networks in a new world of unpredictable demand, BlaBlaCar managed to serve 50 million passengers in 2020 (versus 70 million in 2019) while adapting fast to the new norm. These exceptional circumstances showed the agility of our distributed people-powered transport network and the resilience of a true asset-light and highly fragmented marketplace model.  

Beyond the crisis...

2020 was also the year where many markets outside of Europe saw an inflection point in their shift to digital adoption. As travelers shifted from booking offline to online, we observed a positive year-on-year growth in our emerging & fast-growing bus marketplace in Russia, CEE and Latin America.

And 2020 was also the year during which the sharing economy reached the public market with Airbnb, our closest ‘cousin’. Their successful IPO underlined the power of a strong brand,  a global trusted community and a unique source of supply which has always been core to our model, and remains fundamental to our strategy. 

Last but not least, 2020 was a year of solidarity during which both our team and our community of soon 100M members showed humbling resilience and rebounded together.

Now let 2021 begin! We are looking forward to working with all of you next year. While challenging for everyone, the crisis made us stronger. 

We wish you and your loved ones a safe and joyful holiday season, and may 2021 bring us all together again!