CarDekho doubles traffic and revenue from its auto portals

Group’s auto portals received 338 Million visits in FY 2015-16

Girnar Software Pvt Ltd, parent company of CarDekho.com, Gaadi.com, Zigwheels.com and BikeDekho.com has released its performance numbers for the fiscal year 2015-16. As per the released data, GirnarSoft auto portals combined clocked a record 338 million visits in the year, a growth of 112% versus prior year, further consolidating its position as the number one in auto classifieds and technology solution providing companies in the country. 

The company also revealed that it has doubled its net revenue versus the previous fiscal year.

Through the year 143 million unique users searched for cars and information online using any of the auto portals run by the company. More than 2.8 million users downloaded the CarDekho, BikeDekho and Zigwheels mobile apps in this period on Android, iOS and Windows platforms. 

Mobile Products & Marketing

After the launch of CarDekho and BikeDekho mobile apps in 2014, CarDekho.com has seen mobile-based traffic multiply – mobile traffic on all portals combined grew by 181% to touch 225 Million. A number of new product innovations during the latest year saw user experience enhanced manifold; CarDekho launched Feel The Car, a 360 degree feature to help a buyer evaluate a car from outside and inside, and introduced CarBuddy, an app to help a car owner maintain his vehicle at every step.

The year 2015-16 also saw CarDekho brand take centre stage in its category by co-sponsoring the IPL broadcast with two TV ads - the hugely popular Mr. I Know campaign and the TrustMark Warranty ad. On social media, the four portals together amassed over 2.2 Million fans on Facebook with best-in-class engagement rates, the largest in auto portals category. CarDekho and BikeDekho were the only online portals to have a substantial presence at Auto Expo 2016, showcasing latest technologies of 360 car views and augmented reality enabled virtual showrooms. In a first-of-a-kind move, consumers all over India were able to enjoy a virtual tour of all OEM pavilions at the Auto Expo on CarDekho.com via their unique technology.

The company also organized the largest summit of auto dealers and OE manufacturers in association with FADA (Federation of Auto Dealers Association) to evangelize the cause of digital solutions and marketing in the sector. CarDekho was named the ‘Best Website’ and the ‘Most Popular Website’ in the Automotive Category at the Website of the Year India Awards 2015. PriceDekho which also operates under the umbrella of GirnarSoft, received the ‘Best Website’ award in the Comparison Category.

Acquisitions and Funding 

During this year, strategic acquisitions were made by Girnar to bolster its team, technology and consumer reach. Having acquired Gaadi.com in 2014, CarDekho acquired Zigwheels.com from the Times Group, and then went on to acquire Drishya360s, a premier photography and video production, augmented reality, virtual reality, and web-designing and hosting firm.  With a host of marquee investors backing it, Girnar Software is now valued at over INR 2800 crores. Besides existing investors Sequoia, Hillhouse Capital, Tybourne and Ratan Tata, the company in 2015-16 attracted investments from HDFC bank, Google Capital and Times Internet (the latter as part of the Zigwheels.com deal).  Amit Jain, CEO Co-founder, said, “Our acquisitions till now have enabled us to scale faster and get new technologies to make world-class solutions for clients and customers. More strategic acquisitions are on the cards, so that we add new capabilities to consolidate our pole position.”

Business 

With strategic tie ups with multiple OE manufacturers, more than 4000 auto dealers and many leading financial institutions, CarDekho looks to dominate the auto classified and allied services like auto loans, insurance and CRM solutions. In 2015-16 CarDekho.com launched services like road side assistance, auto insurance (through a tie-up with CoverFox), auto finance and used car auctions. The company added TyreDekho.com, a dedicated portals for tyres as well as TrucksDekho.com for commercial vehicles buyers and sellers.

Besides these businesses, CarDekho’s parent GirnarSoft has also incubated CollegeDekho.com, a higher education portal for college discovery and consultation, which was launched in the last quarter of the year. The company invested USD 1 million to build the edutech startup.

Owing to its rapid growth, the HR vertical at CarDekho was kept busy throughout the year. The company added new members in all parts of the organization, taking the total team strength to over 2500. Some of its top tier hires included Mausam Mathur (Chief People Officer), Umesh Hora (CFO) and Nalin Kapoor (COO, New Cars). The company doubled its sales footprint by establishing new offices in Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad in addition to existing offices in Jaipur, Gurgaon and Mumbai. The dealer services network for CarDekho was rapidly expanded to now cover 100 cities of India.

Commenting on the company’s stellar performance, Amit Jain, CEO, GirnarSoft said “We have built a fast growing, extremely stable and financially sound company in the technology space. I am confident this is among the best internet companies of the country! Our vision is to build a complete auto ecosystem that provides unparalleled benefits to the end consumer and brings truly value-added services and solutions to OEM and dealer partners. The fantastic growth for GirnarSoft in the year 2015-16 is testament to the fact that we are on the right path to building an IPO-able company.”

Read More: Girnar Software bags funding from Google Capital