Automotive
Three unicorns, hundreds of crore in loss and very little market share — What's the hype around online car retailers?
14 Oct 2021
India’s online car retailers are on a different growth trajectory. Three automobile-focused ecommerce platforms — Cars24, Droom and now CarDekho — have been valued over a billion dollars in the last 14 months.
In this same time span, CarTrade has hit the public market and Droom has formally announced its public issue plans for the next 14 months.
It is safe to say that India’s online car retailers are hitting one milestone after another. But what has been the secret sauce behind this? Certainly, India’s automobile sales have started picking up overcoming the economic slump and the pandemic blues, but then again these online retailers have very little to contribute to this.
Preetam Mohan Singh, senior vice president of automotive at global management consulting firm Praxis Global Alliance, told Business Insider that around seven lakh used cars — 20% of the overall used car market — are sold by the organised sector annually. Of this, 450,000 are sold by larger players like Maruti Suzuki True Value, Mahindra First Choice and others.