CarWale and BikeWale parent CarTrade Tech posts record ₹213 crore quarterly revenue on 28 October, shares fall 18 per cent

CarTrade Tech, the listed company that owns CarWale and BikeWale, declared its results for the quarter ended 30 September 2026 on 28 October. Operating revenue came in at ₹213.09 crore, up from ₹193.41 crore a year ago, which the company called its highest ever quarterly revenue. Profit before tax was ₹85 crore and profit after tax was ₹66 crore. The stock fell anyway, by 18.18 per cent to ₹2,307.80 on the BSE.

For a desk that follows Indian automotive video, this is the clearest window we get into the money behind one of the country's big review channels. CarWale and BikeWale are newsrooms with YouTube channels attached, and both sit inside a company that has to publish its numbers every three months.

The newsroom is one of three segments

CarTrade Tech splits itself into three parts. The consumer group, which is where CarWale, BikeWale and CarTrade sit, reported ₹79.49 crore of revenue in the quarter. Remarketing, which is the Shriram Automall auction business, brought in ₹70.30 crore. Classifieds, which is OLX India, brought in ₹70.18 crore, with ₹6.9 crore removed as intersegment elimination. So the editorial and new vehicle discovery side is the largest single piece, but only just.

OLX India was the fastest grower, with revenue up 26 per cent and EBITDA up 36 per cent year on year. Group EBITDA was ₹76 crore, up 20 per cent, at a margin of 36 per cent against 33 per cent a year ago. Employee benefit expenses were ₹83.7 crore, which is 55 per cent of total expenditure of ₹150.8 crore. In a business that makes videos, reviews and road tests, people are the cost.

Traffic, and why the market still sulked

The group reported an average of 76 million monthly unique visitors across its platforms in the quarter, with 96 per cent of that traffic organic, and more than 150 million unique visitors a year. In October 2025 the company had put peak traffic on CarWale and BikeWale at 57 million monthly active users, so the direction of travel is up.

The sell-off had a narrow cause. Profit attributable to equity holders was essentially flat at ₹59.49 crore against ₹59.66 crore, and total income rose only 6.3 per cent to ₹236.23 crore, which is slower than the headline revenue line. Before the results, brokerages were carrying eight buy calls and two sell calls with a 12 month consensus target of ₹3,379.38. Chairman and founder Vinay Sanghi pointed to the record revenue and profit before tax, and to the group's work on technology and artificial intelligence across its marketplaces.

What this says about Indian auto media

Three things follow for readers who watch these channels. First, scale in Indian automotive media now comes bundled with classifieds and auctions, not from advertising alone. Second, the audience numbers that publishers quote in pitch decks are, in CarTrade's case, audited into a quarterly filing, which makes them easier to check than most creator metrics. Third, the pattern of a publisher owning a creator is old news here. Girnar Software, which runs CarDekho and ZigWheels, bought PowerDrift Studios in August 2018, when the Pune channel founded by Rohan Albal and Amit Shetty had about a million subscribers and 240 million lifetime views.

That is the shape of the beat in 2026. Independent creators such as MotorInc, MotorOctane, Sagar Sheldekar and Abhishek Moto run their own books. The biggest video brands, CarWale, BikeWale, CarDekho, ZigWheels and PowerDrift, answer to a balance sheet, and one of those balance sheets is now public every quarter.

Sources