Jaipur-headquartered auto-tech group CarDekho, which owns and operates CarDekho, Gaadi, ZigWheels, Powerdrift, and BikeDekho, as well as OTO in Indonesia, has expanded its global footprint by acquiring Carmudi Philippines, Inc., a six-year-old online car classifieds site in the Philippines.
The Philippines is the second Southeast Asian country where CarDekho Group has started its operations. In 2016, CarDekho green-fielded its Indonesia operations under the brand name OTO.com.
The acquisition is aligned with CarDekho’s business strategy to expand and fortify its footprint across Southeast Asia.
Umang Kumar, co-founder and president, CarDekho group, said, “The Philippines' underlying macro fundamentals make it an extremely promising market. The market demand for new passenger vehicles in the Philippines has grown at a compound annual growth of 14% during 2014-2018 with new car sales crossing 380,000 units in 2018. We see this growth as a big opportunity to digitise the Philippines' auto ecosystem and engage with consumers throughout their online car-buying journey.”
Separately, Carmudi Philippines country head Cholo Syquia said the company’s collaboration with CarDekho would result in the digitisation and simplification of the entire auto ecosystem. Carmudi says it uses a dedicated team of local experts and agencies to offer thousands of vehicles across the Philippines.
This is at least the second acquisition the Girnar Software Pvt. Ltd-operated CarDekho has made in the span of a year. In November 2018, it acqui-hired used cars platform Carbiqi to mark its foray into the auction model. The companies had been in talks for two months before striking the deal.
The Jaipur-headquartered company was founded in 2008, and claims to account for 15%-30% of its partner manufacturers’ annual sales. It also says that it works actively with over 4,000 new auto dealerships and 3,000 used car dealers across India, while at the same time engaging with more than 10 financial institutions and 18 insurance companies to facilitate used car financing and insurance.
Its investors include Sequoia Capital India, Tybourne Capital, Dentsu Inc., Ratan Tata, HDFC Bank, and Hillhouse Capital, among others, according to VCCEdge, the data research arm of Mosaic Digital.
In January this year, the company said it raised $110 million (around Rs 770 crore) in its Series C round, which was led by Sequoia Capital’s global growth fund and private-sector lender Axis Bank. Apart from Sequoia and Axis Bank, other investors who also put in the money included Hillhouse Capital, Ratan Tata's RNT Associates, and CapitalG, formerly known as Google Capital.