Most people buy a car and then think about accessories.

But Ravi, a tech entrepreneur who I spoke to, refused to drive his brand-new car until he had installed a dashcam.

Now, at first, this might sound a little excessive.

But, more and more Indians are now treating dashcams as essential. This sector is zooming at a CAGR of 21%.

Why?

For starters, driving on Indian roads is risky.

Road accidents are an unfortunate reality.

And for drivers, dashcams provide a sense of security. Peace of mind.

But, do dashcams really help when you’re in trouble?

Hear from drivers, lawyers and industry professionals in the latest episode of The Signal Brief.

The Core produces The Signal Brief. Follow us wherever you get your favourite podcasts.

NOTE: A machine transcribed this episode. A human has looked at this text but there might still be errors. Please refer to the audio above, if you need to clarify something. If you want to give us feedback, please write to us at feedback@thecore.in.

TRANSCRIPT:

Kudrat (Host): Most people buy a car...and then think about accessories.

Seat covers. A phone holder. Maybe a car perfume.

But Ravi, a tech entrepreneur, bought something else first.

A dashcam.

In fact, he refused to drive his brand-new car until installing one.

Ravi: So the moment it came, I actually assembled the first dashcam by myself before upgrading to the expensive one from the authorized fitter because I could not afford to drive my car without a dashcam. So it's the kind of insanity you can call it, but I am absolutely serious about this.

Kudrat (Host): Less than a year since, his dashcam has already gotten him out of more than one sticky situation.

Ravi: I was on the right lane, and the bike was on the wrong lane. The guy was off the road, and he's like, "मैंने उसको ऐसे दिखाया की you are being recorded." And I immediately saw the change in the behavior.

So that is one.

On another incident, there was this vegetable cart guy. I don't know what happened, but he realized that उसको कुछ touch हुआ है, probably I hit him.

So I had to take my phone out and show him the recording that, no, it's not me.

Kudrat (Host): Ravi's story might sound unusual.

Refusing to drive a brand-new car until you've installed a camera? That feels a little excessive.

Except... it may not be anymore.

Reports pegged the dashboard camera market in India at around USD 128 million in 2025.

They project that this market will hit USD 482 million by 2032 — that’s a CAGR of nearly 21%.

Fleet operators are increasingly adopting them.

Several carmakers, including Hyundai, Kia and Mahindra, now offer dashcams as factory-fitted accessories or official add-ons.

Globally, the market is growing too... but slower, at 9-11% CAGR.

India is clearly running hotter.

So, why are so many of us buying cameras for our cars?

Kudrat (Host): My name is Kudrat Wadhwa and you’re listening to The Signal Brief. We don’t do hot takes. Instead, we bring you deep dives into the how and why of consumer trends.

In today’s episode, what’s behind the dashcam boom in India? Why has a camera become something so many drivers feel they cannot drive without?

Kudrat (Host): To understand why dashcams are taking off, we first have to understand the problem they're trying to solve.

Indian roads are chaotic.

When I was learning to drive years ago, a decade ago actually, my dad would constantly remind me — “Honk at every crossing!” He’d even reach over and press the horn himself.

I hated it, I questioned it.

But now I get it. That constant vigilance, that low-level anxiety… it’s baked into driving in this country.

And the numbers back it up too.

India accounts for nearly 11% of the world's road crash deaths, even though it has only around 1% of the world's vehicles.

Over 1.7 lakh people lose their lives every year on our roads.

And accidents are only half the story.

What happens after the crash can be just as stressful.

If there are no witnesses...if both drivers tell different stories...

How do you prove what actually happened?

Biswas: Generally, we ask for an insured statement, the other vehicle statement, and an eyewitness statement. So these are all, if I talk in crude language, in third-party insurance in India, it's all... I don't term it as a fraudulent claim, but it's all narrative-based claims.

Kudrat (Host): That was Biswas Mishra, who works in commercial insurance.

He says that, for years, accident disputes have ultimately come down to competing stories. What the insured says happened. What the other driver says happened. And whether anyone else happened to witness it.

Dashcams change that equation.

They promise evidence.

A version of events that doesn't rely on conflicting accounts or on bystanders.

And, not too long ago, they were a niche gadget, something only tech enthusiasts or frequent highway drivers bothered with.

But that’s changing fast.

Today, entry-level dashcams cost just a couple thousand rupees, making them relatively affordable too.

One company that has seen this shift firsthand is Qubo, which entered the dashcam market a few years ago.

I spoke to its founder and CEO, Nikhil Rajpal.

Nikhil: I think when we launched dash cams, dash cams as a category didn't exist in India. In fact, I did some research before launching, and the focus groups said there's no need for dash cams, which was actually quite true. But people don't know what they haven't seen before, whether they need it or not.

So we launched it anyway, just realizing how bad traffic is, having lived in India a lot of my life. The traffic accidents, the fights, the challans, people need proof to solve them. So we launched dash cams, and it was just a runaway hit from day one.

It was literally way beyond our expectations. It was an experiment which, in three months, became our largest-selling category, and we went from nothing to 10,000 a month in three to six months. Of course, after that we had to do a fair bit of brand building and awareness creation, but the first launch was completely organic.

Kudrat (Host): Qubo says that since launching its first dashcam in 2022, it has now sold nearly half a million units in India.

As more drivers install them, awareness has grown organically through word of mouth, social media shares, and viral videos featuring dashcam footage.

Nikhil said that initially, most buyers gravitated toward the cheapest dashcam available. Today however, they’re upgrading.

Nikhil: The big change we've seen is premiumization. People were originally buying their first dash cam, but now, over the last year, almost 90% of our revenue and 70% of our volume comes from premium dash cams of Rs 8,000 and above. So people are choosing higher resolution, higher quality, front and back, as awareness and maturity come in around what people want.

Some of the more expensive dash cams are front and back. They also come with more sophisticated sensors, which can record in all kinds of lighting conditions. So people understand now what they need from a dash cam, the picture quality requirements. They're moving towards more quality products.

Kudrat (Host): Nikhil also told me that half of Qubo’s sales happen online and the other half happen offline, in car accessory stores and electronics markets.

I wanted to see this trend for myself, so I headed to Delhi’s Nehru Place — one of the biggest electronics markets in the city.

Dashcams now share space here, along with rows of speakers, CCTV cameras and phone accessories.

Here’s Niyaz Khan, who works at a store in this market.

Kudrat (from clip): तो मतलब ये dash cams आजकल बिक रहे हैं?

Niyaz: बिक रहे हैं।

Kudrat (from clip): कितना बिक रहे हैं?

Niyaz: मतलब हफ्ते में तीन चार पीस निकल जाते हैं।

तीन चार पीस।

Kudrat (from clip): ठीक है। और मतलब कौन लेता है? Young या थोड़े older लोग?

Niyaz: Ma'am, सभी लेने आते हैं। जिसको जरूरत होता है आकर ले जाता है।

Kudrat (from clip): तो आपके हिसाब से होना चाहिए। लगाना चाहिए?

Niyaz: बिल्कुल। Safety भी है ना। मतलब सही चीज, बढ़िया चीज है। होना, जो सबके कारों में होना चाहिए।

Kudrat (Host): Sellers told me people are buying dashcams for peace of mind — a sense of security that if an accident happens, they’ll have proof to protect themselves in insurance claims or legal disputes.

That’s also what Ravi, the consumer we heard from at the top of the episode said.

Ravi: Now, in order to protect yourself from someone accusing you of something that you haven't done, you need documentary evidence. You need a video. You cannot obviously take your smartphone and keep recording always. So this is where dash cams come in handy. It acts as your shield when you know that you are not wrong, you are following signals, you were not breaking the queue, or you did not hit someone accidentally. It protects you.

Kudrat (Host): But do dashcams actually make a difference when something goes wrong?

Supreme Court advocate and cyber law expert Karnnika Seth told me that yes — dashcam footage is admissible in Indian courts as electronic evidence, as long as you follow proper procedures.

Karnnika: Well, in the past we've used GPS data, footprints, and even contacts which are found in a dashcam. It could also be other pieces of evidence, especially in motor accidents.

So it is an important piece of evidence, and this is something that can actually solve a lot of crime cases. So if it's properly produced, then certainly it can be a main central piece of evidence which can be the basis of various adjudications, both civil and criminal.

Kudrat (Host): That matches what Biswas sees on the insurance side.

Video evidence cuts through the usual “my word against yours.”

Biswas: Generally, in an auto insurance kind of setup, you never know what kind of accident has happened or who was at fault. So if someone is reporting that some third-party vehicle hit me and I was not able to catch them, it was always registered as a third-party claim.

However, if we have the dashcam, now if you are going to a court of law and you are asking for compensation on third-party liability, it will always be better to have video evidence where you can justify that, "No, I was not at fault. The other person was at fault."

Kudrat (Host): Biswas told me that some insurance companies are even experimenting with AI-powered claims processing. In such cases, dashcam footage can be very useful.

Biswas: So if certain criteria are met, the claim will be auto-processed.

So there was a criteria that you upload your dashcam image. Some customers uploaded their dashcam image, and within a few hours, like two or three hours, the claim got settled.

The workshop got intimated that you can start the repair work. We are paying you the full amount for this.

Normally, for our own damage claim to get settled, it will be 15 to 20 days on average.

Kudrat (Host): Still, despite the massive boom in sales, dashcam footage remains relatively niche in insurance claims and even in legal disputes.

Here’s Karnnika again.

Karnnika:  It's still a niche thing. I would say not many people are aware and there is little awareness around it.

Kudrat (Host): Biswas estimates that only about one in every hundred claims he sees currently includes it.

That’s partly because dashcams are still relatively new for most Indian drivers. Adoption is growing fast, but not every accident leads to a disputed claim — many people who own one simply haven’t needed to use the footage yet.

But if other markets are any guide — like Russia, South Korea, and some Western countries — that gap could close quickly.

There, most drivers use them. Insurers accept the footage. Courts actively rely on it.

And insurance companies often reward consumers who have dashcams with faster claims or better terms.

Biswas says that while India isn’t fully there yet, the future could look similar.

Kudrat (from clip): Can an insurance company say, "Hey, you don't have dashcam footage, so we are not gonna approve your claim?"

Biswas: No. No.

Kudrat (from clip): Okay. But you think that's the future we're headed in?

Biswas: We have to. We don't have any choice. The way the number of vehicles is increasing, we have to do that.

Kudrat (Host): Look, dashcams aren’t a structural solution.

They won't stop someone from driving on the wrong side.

They won’t make our roads less chaotic.

And they certainly won’t teach reckless drivers civic sense.

Which raises one final question.

If they don't solve the underlying problem...

Why are so many people convinced they need one?

Here’s Ravi again.

Ravi: So there's a much larger problem when it comes to the driving style and civic sense of our fellow citizens, and I think we are also part of the problem. We all try to take advantage of the situation. So even if I'm trying to follow the lane and follow all the rules, someone will be pinching me, and they'll always intimidate me to break the rules. So no matter how good a citizen you are, you're always surrounded by some bad actors.

So while, yes, it is a Band-Aid solution, eventually you will have to be responsible for yourself and your family first.

Now, I cannot wait for the government to make sure that they have good policemen, good traffic police, infrastructure, and the support system that I need as a citizen, or for some sort of casualty to happen. Somewhere I'll have to safeguard myself, and a dashcam actually helps in a way where you know that whether I'm driving at 10 or if I'm driving at 100 on an expressway, someone will have my back for the last one, two, three, or five days of car recordings.

Outro: That's all for today. You just heard The Signal Brief. We don't do hot takes. Instead, we bring you deep dives into the how and why of consumer trends. The Core produces The Signal Brief. Follow us wherever you get your favourite podcasts.

To check out the rest of our work, go to www.thecore.in.

If you have feedback, we'd love to hear from you. Write to us at feedback@thecore.in or you can write to me personally at kudrat@thecore.in.

Thank you for listening.