Chalti ka Naam Gaadi
GirnarSoft, best known
for CarDekho.com, is on overdrive establishing its presence in a host of
auto-related areas
The year 2015 was all about
the big hori zontal etailers. They made headlines amid surging valuations,
sharp scaleup and rising consumer traffic to their marketplaces. Now as
valuations peak and they head into consolidation phase, the gaze is turning to
sector-focused vertical etaliers.
For any household, the two
biggest buckets of spends are real estate and automobile. Understandably, those
two segments are seeing lot of traction among investors in the online world.
And that may be a reason for GirnarSoft and CarDekho.com figuring on this list.
A chance visit to the
International Auto Expo in Delhi in the latter half of the 2000s led the
promoters of GirnarSoft, a small IT firm then, to set up CarDekho.com in 2008.
The initial aim was to offer a one-stop shop for new car buyers to do online
research and assist them in their buying decision. Advertising on the platform
and leads to dealers were the two main revenue streams then. Since then the
startup has rapidly evolved.
Over the years GirnarSoft
has built an entire ecosystem focused on the automobile sector -CarDekho.com
(for sale of new cars), Gaadi.com (used cars), BikeDekho.com (two-wheelers),
PriceDekho.com (a price comparison website), TrucksDekho.com and TyreDekho.com.
An international arm, CarBay.com, is present in 26 countries across South East
Asia, the Gulf and Latin America. For GirnarSoft, valued at roughly `2,500
crore, CarDekho.com is the flagship portal.
The company today has 2,400
employees, 1,900 new car dealers, 4,000 used car dealers and gets 33 million
visitors a month (this includes traffic to Gaadi.com, which GirnarSoft acquired
in 2014).With a tight control on expenses and a sharp thrust on growth, the
company claims it is operationally profitable. “The money we lose is on TV ads.
But that's for our long-term brand building,“ says cofounder Amit Jain. The
business model clearly has had few problems attracting investors, from Sequoia
Capital, Hillhouse Capital and Tybourne Capital, to Ratan Tata and HDFC Bank.
According to news reports, Google Capital, a growth equity in vestment fund,
which has been selective in its picks in India, may also invest.
India is among the top six
automotive markets in the world (the largest in two-wheelers) and the
government is betting on it to be the third largest by 2026. For a young
nation, with the world's third largest internet base, online will play a
critical role.
While online automobile
sales are negligible today, portals like CarDekho have become important desti
nations for both consumers and auto motive majors to seek and offer infor
mation. Thus they have a significant influence on purchase decisions. That
influence can only evolve and extend to purchases themselves. Last year, Hero
MotoCorp tied up with Snapdeal and in 10 months reportedly sold 3,00,000 mo
torcycles worth `1,500 crore.
For auto spares alone, the
potential is enormous. In China, $613 million worth of spare parts were sold in
2014; that fig ure is expected to touch $4.48 billion by 2020. In India, at $27
million in 2014, spare part sales will likely touch $150 million by 2020, says
Aswin Kumar P, programme manager at Frost & Sullivan India.About 10% of the
advertising spend by the industry ($900 million annually) goes into digital
media, and it's growing rapidly.
CarDekho's nearest rival is
CarTrade.com, which acquired CarWale.com in November 2015. CarDekho too has
been on an acquisition spree. Other than Gaadi.com, it acquired ZigWheels.com,
an auto portal, in 2015. It is also adding products and service offerings
-insurance, road-side assistance, car accessories -to make the model more
robust.“We have a sound revenue and profit roadmap. We will be a unicorn within
the next three years,“ says a confident Jain.
ETM3JAN16
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