Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Q4 FY24 earnings call for CarTrade Tech Limited. This conference call may contain forward-looking statements about the company which are based on beliefs, opinions, and expectations of the company as on the date of this call. These statements are not the guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star, then zero on your touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Vinay Sanghi, Chairman and Managing Director. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, and good afternoon, everybody. Just want to thank you all for joining this Q4 earnings call. Just wanted to start off and say it's been a very exciting quarter for the company, and we had also uploaded a presentation which I'll give you a few slides to give you all a an idea of what the company's performed through this quarter. I think on the first page five, you know, I want to highlight that revenues were on about 52%, profit after tax on about 43% in Q4. We are still the number one automotive platform in India, the largest used car classified business, the largest vehicle auction platform. Almost 17 million unique customers use our platforms, OLX, CarWale, BikeWale, etc., in the last per month, an average of per month in the last quarter.
OLX, as you know, also has 100 million downloads on a phone. There are 350+ physical locations now for us. 90% of our 70 million customers a month come organically, which means we don't pay for this traffic. Our auction platform, Shriram Automall and the remarketing group, had 1.2 million vehicles auctioned last year. Our revenues for the quarter Q4 are the highest ever at almost INR 161 crores. Our Adjusted EBITDA is also the highest ever, in a quarter, which was at INR 49.1 crores for the quarter, and our profit after tax was INR 25 crores in Q4 FY24. As you know, we are a debt-free company, and the strong cash balance of ours is INR 750 crores.
When you go to the consolidated results, which is page six of the presentation, as you can see here, the revenues grew by 52%. The operating revenues have gone by 52% for the quarter. The year-ended revenues have gone by 37%. As you know, here, OLX is only there eight months in the year, consolidated on August 11th. If you see the adjusted EBITDA, highest at INR 49.1 crores for Q4. The EBITDA without other income, without our interest income, was up 77% for the quarter, and the adjusted EBITDA without other income, without all our interest income for the whole year, went up 63% or almost INR 100 crores. If you see the profits of the company, the PAT was INR 29.72 crores in the quarter, one of our highest ever again, up by 30%.
The PBT for the year was INR 98 crore versus INR 60 crore, which is up 62%, and our profit after tax for continuing operations was up 103%, which doubled from INR 40 crore to INR 82 crore during the year. The profit, including discontinued operations, was INR 25 crore for the quarter, so it's been a very healthy financial and strong financial performance for the quarter four. If you go to slide seven, which is our standalone MAU results, if you see I think this is one of the things which most of you have asked is on our margins for our standalone business. In the quarter, the margins have grown from last year 19% to this year 26% for the quarter, which has shown a sharp increase in our margins, which is adjusted EBITDA margin without other income. This has sharply grown up.
Our revenues have grown up by 20% on a standalone basis for the year. Our adjusted EBITDA is up 41% during the year, excluding other income, which shows that our adjusted EBITDA is going up at double the rate of our revenues. Profit after tax on a standalone basis is up 29%. It is slightly lower at 29%, up because of the reduction in our interest income because of the acquisition of OLX. So, really, it's been a strong performance on the standalone business as well, and margins have grown out there. If you look at slide eight, which is our remarketing results, even though it's been a flat year in terms of revenues for it, its profits have slightly improved 8% in this quarter. Adjusted EBITDA is up 8%. In fact, adjusted EBITDA at INR 16.3 crores is also reasonably good with 29% margins.
But on the whole, revenues have been flat in this business, and profits have been also flattish during this current year. This is as a result of repossession vehicle supply coming down, which has been mostly replaced by our retail supply of vehicles. If you look at slide nine, which is the OLX India results or Sobek Auto results, as you've seen here, we had last quarter discontinued and continuing operations. Now, this quarter, March 31, we only have continuing operations, and as we had indicated at that time, the revenues now are close to INR 45 crores, and the profit of the adjusted EBITDA is close to INR 11 crores, which is very similar to last quarter.
Some marginal costs have gone up from the last quarter, which have come to the continuing business, but overall, it's almost out at an INR 9 crore profit for the quarter, and we're quite confident of sustaining and growing this from here. It's a tremendous base. As I said, a lot of the work last year for OLX India has been, you know, the technology transfer, putting together the product and the technology team, getting the management team in place, shutting down the loss-making businesses, and all that has been completed. And as you can see in quarter four, a completely only classified result of INR 45 crore and INR 11 crore profit out here. You know, this is what I had to say. In fact, the brand also on Google Trends, if you see slide number 11, shows strength of the brands of CarWale and BikeWale.
On slide 12, you can see the brand of OLX continually strong, and as I said, our traffic continues to grow. This is what I had. I'm happy to open up for questions and answers now to answer all your queries and clarify all your questions and doubts. Thank you.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wish to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. We have our first question from the line of Mr. Vijit Jain from Citi. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Thanks. Can you hear me?
Hi.
Hi, Vinay . Good night. Vinay, congratulations on a, you know, pretty terrific results, here that we can see across the three businesses. My first question is, for the OLX India classified business, are we looking at what will now be the recurring cost structure for this business now? And also, if you can, you know, talk a little bit about growth in this segment because, since you acquired this company, it seems to be, somewhere around INR 43 crore a quarter revenue, business, pretty steady at that. So your thoughts on that? That's my first question. Thank you.
Thanks. The OLX costs are fully now this is what the costs are. I think this probably is the continuing operation is probably steady state. The reflection of the financials of Q4 are the reflections of steady states for this business. Obviously, our attempt is just to grow this INR 44 crore quarter revenue from here. And it is a typical, you know, classified kind of marketplace where, as revenues grow, costs don't grow in relation to the revenues. And you'll see that now in the next few quarters, that as our revenue continues to grow here, profitability will rise at double the pace, which is, as you see in CarWale even in, even the consumer group. I mean, as revenues grow, our profits tend to grow at 1.5 or two times the speed of revenues, growing.
We want to have the same dynamics here where increase in revenue increase multiplies growth and profits. I think this is the leverage we have on our costs. Again, here, there's very low marketing costs, almost zero marketing costs, and, reasonably, you know, high leverage to profitability with revenue growth.
Got it. You know, any thoughts on sharing more, you know, metrics around OLX India, you know, traffic trends, category-wise mix, those kinds of things now that, you know, this business is, you know, on a recurring basis?
Yeah, sure. We will and I think the traffic tends to be about 30-odd million viewings a month. As I said, a large part of it is on an app on a phone. Almost all of it is, I mean, zero net of marketing. There's no marketing cost to this revenue, to this traffic, sorry, which is making it, you know, giving it the OLX business strong margins. We'll start sharing the traffic metrics with you, I mean, very soon. I mean, now that there's some stability, that's something we'll start doing. If you look at the segmentation also, automotive tends to be about 45%-50%. The rest is non-automotive. That's the other segmentation of the classified revenues, which also, you know, over time, we'll start sharing in a breakup of automotive and non-automotive.
Got it. Thanks, Aneesha. Vinay, my next question is on the remarketing business. So, fair to say that, overall, this business seems to have bottomed out from here. I mean, I, I see the volumes are still down on a YOY basis, but, the decline seems to have, reduced, and revenues are flattish YOY now, declining for three, four quarters. So that's my first question on the remarketing business. And is this coming from, you know, continuing growth in the retail side, or has the repo business also bottomed out? That's my first question.
Yeah, definitely, the repo is flattish now, so it's bottom to flattish. The repo, it actually, till last quarter, it's still going down, but we're hoping that it is flat now, from this year, actually. Last year, it has been grown, and we're hoping that it's flat, this year. But it's hard to predict. I think what's driving even the flattish nature of this business is the retail growth, I think, clearly, which we're putting tremendous effort to continue to grow. That doesn't change how we're continuing our business. So we continue, we need to continuously grow what's in, you know, and what we have control on, which is the retail business. The repo business will bounce back as and when it does. So, you know, we are hoping that it's flattened out, and it's bottomed out. I don't know if it's flattened out.
We're hoping it's bottomed out. But, you know, we thought that last year, and it still went down. So, you know, we're just looking and saying, "Listen, what's in our control and doing?" All the other supply sources and focus on that. But we do believe it should have bottomed out, yeah.
Got it, Aneesha. My last question is for Aneesha, just on this, so if I just look at, you know, the costs below EBITDA line, right, and the balance sheet and the cash flow statements, if you can just talk about, you know, the lease cost trends, the financing costs, and the working capital intensity for the full year FY 2024 versus FY 2023, and if there's anything to, you know, understand over there, that would be helpful.
Sure, Vijit. So, I think, Aneesha, the consolidated set of accounts, because it has OLX in it, it looks like a jump. But if you go independently, these are static costs. They don't move because we don't have debt in the company, so we don't have any finance cost. So the only increase you see is on account of lease accounting.
Right. And, why have the lease acquisition costs gone up so much? Is that all related to OLX itself, or, you know, there are lease cost increases related to the remarketing business as well?
So it goes independently in each of the slides, Vijit. So if you look at the standalone entities, there's the total finance cost itself is only INR 16 lakhs, and including depreciation, that cost has increased only by about INR 1.6 crores in the quarter, which includes both depreciation and finance costs. So majority of the increase is on account of the OLX acquisition, but standalone and remarketing have also marginally increased on account of additional leases that we have taken, mainly in remarketing and standalone business, one new property that we have added, or one new floor that we have added in the business.
Oh, okay. Got it. Got it. Great. Yeah. I think those are my initial questions. I'll just get back into the queue. Thank you.
Sure. Thank you.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Siddharth Bera from Nomura. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, sir. Thanks for the opportunity, and, congrats on a great set of numbers.
I see, sir.
Sir, first question on the OLX side, again. I mean, what would it be possible to share some insights into what can sort of help improve the run rate from current levels, which are the areas you plan to target in the first year, and, when can we see that sort of benefit, sort of coming in the revenues? It can be both on monetization or the segments which you think, can help us sort of scale up faster.
What's the question on how we grow revenues? I mean, simply? I mean, both sides?
Yes. Yes. OLX, right.
Right. Right. Yeah. So OLX, we got two sides of it. We've got auto, and we've got non-auto. As I said, 45%-50% is auto. Within auto, it's used cars, basically. And obviously, we believe that the used car classified business is a. It's a, you know, lots of runway to grow. And OLX is, obviously focused on staying focused on growing used car classified revenues by adding more dealers, by increasing our pool per dealer, providing more value to the dealer, increasing traffic, and supplying more traffic to dealers. So it's, it's a typical classified model of dealers paying subscription revenues for listing vehicles. And, as I said, there are 30 million customers who come to OLX, and that is why dealers list on, on this platform.
So clearly, for us, in the immediate future, I would say next, you know, two quarters would be, you know, focusing on the used classified business, something we understand well as a group. That would be the big focus for, I would say, next two, two quarters. You know, post the two quarters, we are also extremely optimistic about the non-auto side. The non-auto side's got homes, jobs, electronics, two-wheelers, primarily, and household item and household. The idea is to grow those five segments as well. Obviously, we're putting together a plan of action and a team, etc., etc., in those segments, which will probably take, you know, a couple of quarters for us to, you know, understand better and then focus on growth there.
But it's a two-two almost like a short-term growth objective and a little, you know, I would say an immediate plan of action, which is growing used cars. And the short-term would be the non-automotive segments. And of course, then in the medium and long-term, growing other segments as well, which are not here even there today. So the intent is to focus on growth over the next one, two, three years in OLX. And there are multiple in fact, that we believe the time is just unlimited. So, so whether it is used cars, whether it's non-automotive, in many ways, it's enhanced the time of the entire group, not just OLX.
Got it, sir. And just a clarification on this OLX, Aneesha. I mean, when we acquired this entity, we had highlighted it had about 35 million-+ MAUs. Now we are talking about 30 million. So has there been any, moderation, or, this is the way accounting has changed or something like that?
I think we are also finding ways of it's about 30-odd million now. But it's also about how analytics work. And we're given a brief indication that it was, but we also move from a global environment to our environment and the analytics related to it. So the traffic is pretty steady. I don't think in fact, it's now we see, you know, there's a marginal growth we see, but it's also how the analytics are laid out in this business.
Okay. Okay. Got it, sir. So second question on this, standalone business, the consumer business, here, we have seen growth rates sort of slightly coming up from, say, beginning early 20s to now mid-teens, over the last one year. So going ahead with the industry tailwinds from, like, the supply, normalizing, inventory levels building up, do we expect that the growth here can be, faster as we go ahead into the year because, OEMs will need to spend more to sort of get customers? So any thoughts or any indications you are seeing here?
The new car business, you know, 523, we've got more than 40%, about 40%, I think. And this year, it's about 20%, right? The new car, the new vehicle business for the consumer group. And I think, the car industry last year was at 8%. So it's clearly ahead of the car industry, and it's also grown at 20% last year on a very, on a higher base of growth than previous year. We genuinely, we've always indicated that this is the rate of growth we normally see in these businesses. And the car industry is reasonably, I would say, demand has been strong, and supply has been strong, which is a good place to be, I would say. Both, both demand and supply are reasonably strong.
In fact, we had marginal growth in the car industry in April, as you know, the car companies have declared their volumes. But last year, the car industry was at 8%. From one of the analysts I speak to and manufacturers I hear, I think they think the car industry will be between 0% and 5% growth this year. They believe that. I think that's reasonably okay for the consumer group when you have that level of growth because it's growing on a high base too.
Okay. Okay. So lastly, in terms, Aneesha, for you, basically, just wanted to clarify this, that the presentation says that the cash balance is about INR 750 crore, but if you look at the balance sheet, the investments and cash in banks, the numbers add up to close to INR 670 crore. So, just if you can point out where the remaining number is, sort of sitting.
Sure. So there, you'll see it in the caption called investments. The others will be in other balances.
Okay. And the ESOP cost of INR six crore per sorry?
Sorry?
So, I just was mentioning this ESOP cost of INR six crore per quarter. So this is now a sustainable run rate for the next year also, or should we expect some normalization in this number going ahead?
We can expect the ESOP cost to be around this range within the next year.
Okay. Okay. Thanks, Aneesha. Welcome, Aneesha.
Thank you. A reminder to all participants, you may press star and want to ask questions. We have our next question from the line of Ankit Kanodia from SmartSync. Please go ahead.
Thank you for taking my question, and congratulations, and good setup number.
Thank you.
Bye. Yeah. So, my first question is related to numbers. So, in the OLX business, this quarter, we have seen a rise in ESOP finance and depreciation cost. So any color on to whether this will be continued in the subsequent quarters, or we expect some moderation here?
Yeah, I think all OLX costs are almost, like, steady now. I, I think once you anticipate that some of this will I mean, this will be a reflection of costs. They're almost.
Huh?
Yeah. Okay. Trade receivables have almost jumped, I think, 50% compared to last year. What is this trade receivable, if you can clarify? What are the nature of trade receivables?
Aneesha, you can add on, but I'll, I'll just trade receivables from customers, which could be manufacturers or advertising agencies. And that's the nature of it. I think with revenue growth of 50%, trade receivable accordingly has grown as well, I think. That's a ratio. Aneesha, you want to add on to anything?
Yes, Aneesha. In fact, even in the trade receivables, there will be an element of OLX which gets added because what they are looking at is the consolidated set of accounts. So there is about a INR 10 crore number which is from OLX, which is added to the base.
Okay. Do you expect that OLX number to come down in the subsequent quarters?
I mean, we but.
It will be Trade Receivables. I think it will be almost steady state, right, Aneesha? Is that correct?
Yes, yes. It will be a steady state number.
So, this trade receivables of OLX is basically on the continuing business, not from the discontinued business?
Yes, yes. It's from the continuing business.
Okay. Okay. Okay. Now, second question is related to the synergy. So what I see in CarTrade Tech's journey is that we have acquired several businesses over several times. But I still find it unable to understand how is the synergy playing out because I see CarWale as a separate platform. I see Shriram Automall as a completely different separate. Similarly, OLX also is a wonderful platform. But how are we synergizing the benefits of all these different platforms? Because I don't see that synergy coming in, maybe I'm unable to understand. But if you can throw some more light as to what we are working in and in how many quarters we can see that synergy benefit accruing to the company, that would be very helpful. Sure.
I think the first thing I want to clarify is when we acquire a company, we try and look at synergy, but we also try and make sure these businesses are good on a standalone basis, which means that if there was no synergy applied to any of these businesses, they must grow revenues, margins, and customer experience in their own field independently. So these acquisitions are not done only for synergy. They were done as good independent businesses too. Of course, we believe there are customer synergies. For example, if a used car dealer today is bidding for a vehicle on Shriram Automall, that same dealer is listing a car on OLX or CarWale for sale. So that's the obvious customer journey synergy, right?
If a consumer is coming to CarWale to sell a car, or buy a new car, it's almost selling a used car on OLX, right? The same customer. So there is a lot of customer synergy which exists across, which is not apparent to everybody, but exists across these platforms. Just so also, when we acquired CarWale, CarWale had a used car classified business, and CarTrade had a used car classified business. So the first thing we did with synergy was we allowed dealers who are selling used cars to list on one technology platform cars on CarWale and CarTrade seamlessly, which means if you're a dealer and you want to sell your car, earlier, you had to go to CarWale separately and then buy a separate package with CarTrade and then list your car. Here, on one list, you can do it in both.
Obviously, when we acquired OLX, the intent would be that if you're a used car dealer using CarWale and you're using OLX, the intent would be which is what CarTrade Tech is now currently working on, that if you want to sell your car on CarWale or OLX, with one press of one button, you can go on to both platforms, which gives dealers access to both platforms, gives consumers access from both inventory in both places, and obviously, it helps us monitor the dealer better. So, some of these synergies, whether it's customer synergies, whether it is technology synergies we've been exploiting, over the last many years, I think and we've always tried to work at synergy in our, at least in the group has been on a very arm's-length, win-win basis, which means we don't enforce synergies on our teams.
If they believe there's a win-win relationship with another sister concern, then they choose to work with them. And it's always completely on arms-length basis. I think that's the way we function. But there are a lot of customer and obvious technology synergies also. Great. Thank you so much for that. I'm going to give you some examples. I want to give you two, three examples of it, but yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, I think you only missed the Shriram Automall. So Shriram Automall, there are two, three obvious synergies. Dealers buying vehicle on Shriram Automall, list on CarWale for sale. So that same dealer's being tapped by the group in two different places. So that's the first, you know, customer synergy which exists automatically.
I think the one we are trying to make work, to be honest, which is harder, is people coming to CarWale or now OLX to list their car for sale, consumers like you and me, can we get them to auction the vehicle on Shriram Automall? And that's been a harder challenge than we think. But that would be the other obvious synergy, which is still not fully exploited, I would say. Yeah. If you can share some data related to, like, what you said just now, I think where, a dealer who has auctioned the car can also sell the car on CarWale. So if you can share some data related to how many cross-selling opportunities or those things are there, I think that would be very helpful to us.
I think for me, from a competitor angle, we won't want the policy to share the data. But I tell you one thing that in fact I said something else. I said dealers who are buying vehicles on Shriram Automall are also selling on CarWale or OLX. I think the other way around. But you know, obviously, due to a competitive dynamic with the business, I'm not sure whether we will want to give out a number of dealers using all our platforms, etc., etc. Right. Right. Right. One last question related to the standalone number. So, over the year, it is showing 20% growth, but towards the last quarter, it is showing only 15% growth. What would be the reason for this slower growth in the? No, no reason as such.
I just think that even the last base of last year is probably higher. But no reason as such. The Q4 was probably the best quarter in the consumer group ever anyway, so close to the best quarter ever. So I don't think there's anything at all. Nothing from a business standpoint we've seen. So I know that you don't provide any guidance, but generally, 20%-25% growth rate is achievable in the foreseeable future also in the standalone business? Yeah. As I said earlier, we tend to grow at those rates in decent years. You know, a track record is that. So I'm. I don't talk about the future, but a track record is what one should see. Thank you so much.
Maybe, maybe it may be a little different in M&A here because last year was an M&A year. This year, there's part effect of M&A because OLX was not fully factored last year. So it may be a little better in M&A years, but otherwise, it tends to be in that range. The track record is that. Thank you so much, and all the best for the business. Thank you so much. Thank you.
Thank you so much. We have our next question from the line of Atul Bose from JM Financial. Please go ahead.
Hi, team. Can you hear me?
Hello. Yes, we can hear you.
Yeah. So first of all, congratulations on a good set of numbers. So my question is around OLX business, that there has been a dip in margin for OLX in this quarter. So where do you see this margin stabilizing in future?
There's been a slight dip just because some costs, as we indicated in the last morning's call, have moved from discontinuing to continuing operations. But this is normal now. So this is normalized now. We see the margins will improve from here. Margins will improve on account of revenue growth now. I think all the costs are factored. This is probably a completely normal quarter for OLX, and it's stable. So from here, as revenue grows, we believe that margins will continue to grow. I have said earlier in the call that when revenue grows, we expect margins to outpace. Like you've seen in the consumer group, it's on 19%-26%. We just also would like to see and we believe that OLX with revenue growth will see disproportionate margin growth as well.
All right. If you can share any color on how will the OLX revenue shape up from long-term view? Long-term perspective.
So we had given some discussion in the call earlier, but there are two segments, the automotive and non-automotive. Obviously, our intent in the immediate term right now is to grow the automotive side, which is 45%-50% of the business. And over the medium I mean, I would say long short-term, this is after six-12 months, would be to grow the non-automotive side. But we all believe that OLX has very, very strong growth potential. It’s the acquisition itself was probably game-changing for CarTrade as a group and obviously given us an opportunity to explore other segments outside automotive. Although we are continually very bullish about used cars with OLX, it also gives us a chance to do homes and jobs and electronics, two-wheelers, etc., etc.
All right. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
We have our next question from the line of Aditya from Stalwart Assets. Please go ahead.
Hello. Hello.
Hello. Yeah, go ahead, Aditya.
Yeah. Just wanted to understand the ESOP cost for FY25. Would it be around INR 25 crore?
Yes. I think maybe that's probably right. It's probably the same rate at this quarter also. Probably.
Sure.
25, Aneesha, am I right? That's correct. Hello.
Hello.
Yeah, that's it. Do you have any other question? Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. So in Q3 call, I think so we had highlighted there could be some one-off costs in Q4 and Q1 pertaining to OLX. So can you quantify what is that number in Q?
No, no, no. We have not indicated that. And everything is done. There's no one-off costs now. We had indicated that in Q3, there were some one-off costs. There's no one-off costs in Q4 or Q1 next year.
No, like we were going to see some depressed profitability in OLX business due to some reorganization, which we had to complete in the auto-classified business. I'm just asking about that.
No, no. There is nothing. And, Aneesha, am I correct? There's nothing now which I mean, as you see the quarter of Q4, I think that model is stable state. There is no further one-off kind of cost.
What we had indicated in the Q3 results was that in Q4, we would see a bit of a decline in the profit on account of the CTX overhead being absorbed by CLA, which was already factored in the Q4 results. And Q1, the only impact onto that we had indicated previously were increments because one of our largest costs was the employee cost. So those are the only two heads.
But I would just say that Q4 is now all factored in at this point.
Yes. Yes. Got it. Now, I just wanted to understand the growth for all the three businesses. If I see the consumer business, that I think so we should be growing at around 2x of the auto industry, 2x-3x. Remarketing business will depend on the repo business, which has been degrowing for FY24. How should we look at the growth part in OLX business, the auto classified and the non-auto classifieds? Because there, we have a big potential in terms of property, electronics, and everything which is there. We're selling on the non-auto side. So how should we look at it? Should we it be a similar consumer business kind of growth of 20%, or should we look at it like a 30%-40% kind of a number going ahead in the next couple of quarters?
First, you know, the consumer group, this year, at least, has to go higher than the car industry does because the car industry is supposed to go 0%-5%. So we're hoping that the consumer group growth is much, much stronger than double the new car industry growth, for sure. That's one. But, but it is, it is, you know, a, a factor of growth in the car industry, factor of growth in digital advertising, factor of growth of digitization of dealerships and manufacturers and all of that. But we feel pretty optimistic about the position of the car industry or the new vehicle industry. Shriram Automall, you're right. I think the two things, one is to keep growing the retail business, and the, the fall in repossession is probably we're hoping bottomed out. But yeah, it is to keep growing the retail business.
Repossession during the year will probably, you know, come back, and volumes will increase there. That will give us the growth impetus we need there. On OLX, actually, we are very bullish on growth, and I don't want to put a percentage to it. But OLX is not governed by car manufacturers, or car dealers, or new car sales. It's governed by a very fragmented used car market. 45%-50% of its revenue comes from the used car industry. And the used car industry sells five-six million cars a year. It's been robust and buoyant for the last three-four years. There are thousands and thousands of dealers who use OLX, for selling these cars. OLX has reasonable relevance to these dealers. A large percentage of the dealer sales comes from OLX. It is the number one used car platform in the country.
And we believe that OLX has a tremendous opportunity to grow this business. And this growth, you know, is something we're extremely optimistic about. And one of the reasons we acquired OLX is for this growth. The second area of jobs, homes especially, OLX is in the second two categories in OLX, biggest categories, in terms of revenue. They, both these categories, OLX is reasonably strong in B and C towns in India for both jobs and homes, and especially in jobs homes. It's mostly for low-ticket-sized homes. So it's got its own segment there. And as I said, not in the immediate term, but probably in the short term, it's going to take us six months to, you know, put teams behind this. We see tremendous growth opportunities in both jobs and homes as well.
There are two other categories, which is bikes and electronics, which is OLX's extreme impact today. If any one of us wants to sell a two-wheeler or a mobile phone, OLX is probably the platform we would use. And that's where we're again very, very strong at that. It is a category we believe also we can monetize extremely well in the next two-three-four-five years. So we have lots of plans around all these categories. And therefore, we put as I said, I don't want to put a percentage of growth, but we feel very optimistic about the growth at OLX.
Got it. I just wanted to understand, like now we have complete dominance on the used cars market, like, from the car OLX acquisition in 2016, the way we started 2012, started CarTrade, and now we have OLX Auto also. So how, how should we look at that J curve in terms of profitability? Because by today, if I see your profitability, you're on we are all probably on a run rate of INR 100 crore PAT, maybe in FY25. How, how should we look at that J curve? Because we have worked really hard for the last six, nine years to make this kind of a dominance. So when, when should we expect to see a very big jump in profitability for a company? Because now we're a very really dominant player in the field that we're operating. How should we look at that?
Yeah. So first, you know, we have good relevance with especially new cars. We have strong relevance with new car dealers and new car consumers. I agree with you. I mean, this INR 24 crore-25 crore PAT, that's probably the current run rate of profitability. We do believe that revenues with growth of revenues, the profitability should rise, and margins should rise. That's the nature of the business. The costs don't grow in relation to revenues. So we feel very optimistic about profitability for the next one, two, three, four years, clearly. And we also believe that one of the biggest opportunities within the company are used car classifieds. We do believe that. With the acquisition of OLX, our ability to focus on used car classifieds with consumers and dealers becomes even stronger, with OLX being the largest player at this. So clearly, you know, used car classifieds is important.
Clearly, it will help drive revenue growth and profitability growth for the group. Used car classifieds, the business is already profitable for us. In fact, all our businesses are individually profitable. We feel, yeah, quite optimistic about profitability growth as well as revenue growth.
Good. Thank you so much, that's all.
Thank you so much. Thank you.
Thank you, sir. A reminder to all participants, you may press star one if you want to ask questions. We have our next question from the line of Mr. Sahil Doshi from Thinkwise. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Good afternoon. My question relates to.
Oh, good afternoon, Mr. Sahil. Can you please use the handset?
Yeah. Am I audible now?
Yes.
Yes. So the question relates to OLX. In terms of, could you just help us understand, you know, what is the kind of paid liftings we have, and what is the growth which we are seeing there organically, and how much of it is driven by ARPU possibly? I understand it's a little too early, but, if you can just help us get a direction of that, that will really help us understand the size of opportunity.
Sorry. Can you just, the ARPU? Sorry, I mean, the last part? Sorry. The ARPU only ARPU.
Yeah. I mean, if you could possibly bifurcate how much of it we are expecting from the ARPU driving growth?
Growth and.
yes. Yes.
It's hard to give percentage, but we expect a growth in number of dealers, the number of people paying, as well as ARPU as well.
Okay. Could you possibly quantify the number of paid listings we would have today in OLX?
As of now, we are not, you know, we are not sharing that. We're just in the future, we will try and share some of the metrics. But it is probably the largest marketplace in India with consumer paid listings. We have two sets of paid listings. One is consumer listings for paid and dealer listings for paid. We are still not sharing the total number of paid versus total number of listings. You know, going forward, we'll try and share some of this data. But the objective is to grow all paid listers. And the objectives are also to grow ARPUs per paid lister, both.
Understood. Appreciate that, sir. Does this make any sense on the average ARPU? Meaning, what would be an average ARPU for a paid listing typically?
We'd have to give it distinctly because it's by segment, right? So it could be a consumer listing a phone, and a consumer listing a car that is different. And that's live on the website, actually, the cost for it. Or it could be a dealer, again, listing a car or a two-wheeler or a home or a, so it's just hard to put an ARPU to this. There's just different rates for different listers.
Okay. Understood. Appreciate that. And the second question is on the standalone business, where we've seen a little bit of a dip compared to our past run rate of growth, at around 15% YOY this quarter. Any reason why this is happening? Is it because this is contrary to the fact that the number of users and the conversion, the organic traffic has actually gone up? So.
That is correct. The organic traffic has gone up. You know, it's higher because the standalone business probably has the best operating revenue growth, of the best revenue, operating revenue ever in history. So it is on a high last-year base as well. The last year, as I said, grew again at a very high pace. And this has grown 20% YOY over above that base. But also, you've got to remember that the growth in the car industry, you know, from double more than double-digit growth the previous year has come down to 8% just in FY24 and only 2% in April, right? So there is also a bit of car industry growth factor here. But as I said, you know, we feel pretty good about the industry state and the consumer group state.
I think these are now normal growth rates that are, you know, what we're showing in the track record we had in the last two, three years.
Understood. Final question from my end too, sir. When do we see the initiative which we are working on, the One Click and, you know, a lot of other initiatives around financing or the car trade, or basically the website which you're trying? When do you see that actually becoming meaningful in terms of monetization for the platform?
So the Buy One Click journey of giving a business someone buy a loan or a vehicle is going on. There are already some elements of that. Like, for example, on financing, it's definitely live on CarWale, BikeWale, and multiple other platforms where you can get a loan immediately approved. We also work with various car manufacturers, on their under their dealerships and their website, to allow these finance products to work. And that's a continuous exercise for us. It's already become significant in terms of customer experience. I mean, tens of thousands of people get approvals every month on this technology of financing or a fintech product. And you know, the fintech product that we Buy One Click, it's got two parts of it.
I think the first part we've always said about customer experience is allowing consumers to have a superior financing or buying experience, which is what we primarily work on. The second part of it is can we monetize it better? And this is the monetization becomes significant. I think the monetization is something which is secondary to us right now around it. We've always said that this whole financing of Buy One Click is about customer experience and giving visibility for a consumer to have a quick, convenient experience to do something on CarWale, BikeWale, and even OLX in the next two quarters. The financing product will get launched there as well. So the intent is, of course, to take this Buy One Click journey across all our platforms, including OLX. And the intent is also to get better customer experience.
Monetization, you know, this customer is already monetized by way of charging dealers and etc., etc. We're not so worried about it. Our margins are also improving as we increase revenue. So we're not worried about that. I think the biggest thing for us is how do we enhance the use of this product, and then how do we make the experience of the journey of buying a vehicle or a used car or a two-wheeler more easy by this One Click financing or One Click buying approach?
Sure, sir. That is very helpful. Thank you so much.
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you, sir. We have our next question from the line of Aniket Kulkarni from B&K Securities . Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity. So you have given your presentation that you have close to INR 750 crore in cash balance in there. So how do you plan to utilize this cash, and if you can give any outlay for the same for the current year or the next year?
Yeah. The cash which is there, obviously, the intent is to look at future growth in the business. OLX is a very game-changing acquisition for the group. And obviously, over the next two, two, three years, as and when we find, you know, another opportunity, we will look at it. And if we don't, we won't. And obviously, our intent will be over the period of time to distribute it back to shareholders and stakeholders, as we go on. So, the two uses, as I said, one is probably in the near term or medium term, if we do find another M&A opportunity. As you know, it takes a long time for us to find something. After Shriram Automall in 2018, OLX was in 2023, so it was five years later.
So until we find something and we feel really good that we can turn it around and exploit all the synergies, obviously, we won't make an M&A acquisition. And if we do not, obviously, as you know, we are profitable, generating cash, and the INR 750 crores will keep growing. And we will obviously look at returning it at, when it's possible to do to shareholders and stakeholders, obviously.
All right, sir. Thank you, sir.
Thank you.
Thank you, sir. We have our next question from the line of Rahul Rane from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hello. Hello. Hi, Rahul.
Hey. Hey, Aneesha. Hi, hi. Just wanted to get an update in terms of, you know, the abSure foray that we had in terms of certified vehicles, you know. How is that going? Because I think a couple of quarters, we've kind of not mentioned the number of outlets, etc. So just wanted to understand how that's going, what's the throughput over there, just some bit on that.
Actually, yeah, to the question, the OLX acquisition actually changed this a little bit where OLX also had an equal number of a similar number of certified stores, OLX stores. So, by force, obviously, number of stores we have doubled, which I think is closer to 220 or 230 today, automatically. We are working on a very deep strategy on how to look at these stores, in relation to where you want to grow at, number one, of course, but also do we want to combine the OLX CarWale store or not, or at least, if not combine the stores, at least provide similar technology and features and products to both stores, right? So, you know, that's a big game-changing thing. But independently, the CarWale abSure and signature stores have grown. And independently, we have acquired OLX.
So it's actually doubled our coverage, automatically. And it's something a very big focus area for the next 12 months to first come out of the product, which is uniform for both OLX and CarWale stores. And the second is to, of course, then keep growing these stores, both of these.
Got it. Got it. So currently, they are running independently, but you would look to let's say there is someone who sold his vehicle on an OLX, the same car probably sometime down the line will also be available to sell on CarWale abSure. Is that that?
We are still working through the modalities of, of how do the franchise store of OLX and CarWale get the same, you know, products and services. So it'll take us some business synergies, you know, come in, and it'll take us some time. But the fact that the 220 coverage points makes us very excited about this area. It's actually doubled our coverage automatically, actually.
Understood. Understood. And on a standalone basis, in terms of abSure, would they have kind of stabilized now in terms of, you know, profitability on a per-store basis? What's the throughput, number of cars required per month? Any, you know, kind of metrics around?
Yeah. It's anyway, it's stable. It is quite stable. But it's also, always, you know, because our, we have no, it's an asset-light business for us. So again, it's a reasonably high-margin business. It doesn't, there's very little cost against it except variable manpower. There's no, as I said, no marketing cost against it or no CapEx against it. So it's just variable manpower that and profiles which work on the processes and the store. So we feel it's a very attractive business for us. And that's why we feel excited about the OLX acquisition. Not only has it new classified business, but definitely has the abSure business as well.
Got it. Got it. And, and just on the consumer piece, if you could, you know, kind of say for the full year, FY24 versus 2023, a broad split between, you know, our revenues, how much would have come from auto manufacturers versus dealers?
Yeah. It's pretty stable. Actually, we didn't do this by mistake. We didn't do this on the original presentation. But it's pretty similar. 85/15 is new and used. OEM dealer is about, you know, 65/35 and Q4. It's quite stable. In fact, some of the other metrics were, you know, repo over the years about 49%, which is, you know, down with the 49%, slightly lower. So I think the percentage are quite stable to what they were the previous quarter. So we have not given it out. But yeah, your question was on OEM versus dealers, 65/35.
65/35. This number, let's say, going forward, you know, in a scenario where now there is no, you know, kind of pent-up demand on the consumer side, one would assume that OEMs will need to spend more in terms of advertising, right, to, to, you know, kind of attract demand. So this, this proportion would ideally move in favor of OEMs? That would be the right way to think about it?
No. We think the other way around. Logic is moving in favor of dealers, but it's been quite stable over the last four, five quarters. So it's hard to say. But we actually believe that, you know, it should be quite, favoring dealers as dealers advertise more. It is more from that angle. But as of now, it's been quite stable, actually, to be honest.
Okay. Okay. Okay. Sure. Sure. Sure. Thanks, Aneesha.
Thank you.
Thank you, sir. We have our next question from the line of Nitin Shakdher from Green Capital Single Family Office. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good afternoon, Vinay. Good afternoon, Aneesha. First of all, congratulations on the steady bounce back and the promise that there will be no further write-offs on the business. So can we take that as gospel that there shouldn't be any further one-off write-offs because that spoils the annual trend?
Actually, the only write-off we had was on discontinuing a business which we had said we had discontinued. Otherwise, we might have one anyway. So, I don't want to talk for the future, but clearly, in the last couple of years, the only thing has really been that one discontinuing business, which is what companies we acquired and kept it classified, they discontinued it to be. But there is no anticipated write-off with that as a question.
Okay. Great. And my second thing is you've spoke about briefly, but I just want to get a bit specific. Like, obviously, the cash and bank balance is far heavier right now, to what it was last year. And the closing position seems fairly good now, you know, while you're doing acquiring and M&A and strategies which take time and, you know, synergies built up over time, I just want you to consider specifically a solution for existing institutional as well as shareholders in terms of, can you evaluate a buyback, if that's equitable towards your ratios and things like that, or a building strategy because, you know, it has to be something given to shareholders as well, considering you came in at INR 1,500 on an IPO, and it's, you know, already 2.5-3 years. There has to be something. You're constantly expanding the ESOP pool.
But I don't see you returning a lot more back to the shareholders with a significant push there. Any thoughts on that?
Sure. I think two things. One is that in the IPO, we did only secondary, you know, no primary raise into the company, number one. The second part is actually, even the ESOP costs over the last three years have continuously come down. So that is the second part. From INR 27 crore down to INR 22 crore this year. The second part is that. The third was we would absolutely look at, you know, buybacks and dividends as and when, you know, we think that the money can be distributed back. There is regulation today, dictating what quantum of buybacks and dividend distribution we can do. So we obviously have to work within the guidelines of the regulation. And we're restricted from doing certain things by regulation itself.
You know, as and when the regulation allows us to distribute in terms of buyback or dividend, we'll absolutely like to do so.
Yeah. I mean, it's just a request. At the end of the day, the company knows better in terms of financial management and engineering. But I think you should consider that also significantly for this year, considering that it's the start of the year. And put that as how you could sort of work on that. That's just.
Of course. We, yeah, we will, but we can only do it under the constraints of the regulation. That's all I'm saying, so. And the Companies Act, right?
Okay. Thanks. Thanks, sir.
Thank you. Thank you.
Yeah.
Thank you, sir. We have our next question from the line of Rishikesh Ojha from Robo Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. Sir, for FY2024, our net revenues have grown by 32%, while our adjusted EBITDA has grown 63%. So can you indicate, like, how are we looking, our revenue growth at for, let's say, for next two to three years? And will it be fair to say that our EBITDA growth would be 2x of revenue growth going ahead also?
Yeah. We see a strong position in terms of revenue growth, etc. But you also indicated earlier that, you know, our profitability tends to grow at a much sharper pace than our revenue growth. It tends to be 1.5-two times, you know, more. I would say more 1.5 if revenue grows by INR 100 and profitability tends to go up by, you know, INR 150. I think that is a by by it's 100% and 150%, so or 1% and 1.5%. I think I would take that ratio. That's what tends to be. Sometimes it's better than that. Just now, it's currently better than that. But it tends to be. That's the way it grows because our costs would go up along with our revenue growth. I only have people costs.
Okay. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, sir. We have our next question from the line of Tushar Sarda from Athena Investments. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you. And congratulations for a good set of numbers.
Thank you, Tushar.
Yeah. I wanted to ask on this CarWale, your revenue has grown, but your expenses have grown higher. And this is a fairly mature business. So, you know, how does the operating leverage play out in this business?
So if you see, the revenue growth is for the year, it's about 20% from operations standalone, which is CarWale which is our consumer group. And our expenses have grown by, I think, 16%, Aneesha. Is that correct?
16%.
16%. So actually, the expenses have not grown with the same way the revenue. That's why we have 41% growth in Adjusted EBITDA.
Okay.
Actually, the way to look at it is revenue growth is 20%, adjusted EBITDA is 21%.
I'm looking at the annual, not the quarterly numbers. Is that what you mean?
Yeah. I'm looking at the annual numbers. And you look at the annual.
Because the annual revenue has grown 19%, and even employee cost has grown 19%. So, you know,
Employee cost has. But as I said, the marketing costs are only up 7%. Other expenses are up 16%. So aggregate.
But this is a business based on internet advertising, right? So why would employee costs go up?
It is not necessarily. It's a mix of, of course, internet advertising for manufacturers and dealers. But it's also about adding more. All our technology development in the future goes to revenue. And so if we develop future technologies or in our tech product team, any expansion goes to employee cost. Any expansion of field force or call centers goes also to employee cost. And that's the number one cost which, you know, tends to go up. As I said, in a lot of companies, employee cost, marketing cost, operating costs all go up. In our case, variable manpower is what goes up when we, you know, as the company keeps growing. And therefore, you see even then, a 20% revenue from operations growth has got a 41% growth in Adjusted EBITDA.
Okay. Okay. On the OLX acquisition, what is going to be your policy to write off the cost of acquisition? Are you going to expenses to P&L, or would it carry on in the balance sheet?
The OLX acquisition is being captured as in our goodwill. The acquisition value itself is captured in our goodwill, which is reflected in our balance sheet. Actually, the objective is to give a return on that capital employed and not write it off because we obviously believe that the M&A acquisition itself is value-creating, so.
Okay. So no plans to amortize it?
No, no, no. No, there's no amortization. Of course, there's not.
Okay. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, sir. We have our next question from the line of Vijit Jain from Citi. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thank you for the opportunity again. Two follow-up questions. One, you know, Vinay, in general, for the standalone business, for the industry, overall, you know, just your comments on, do you see dealers being subdued generally in FY24 relative to other segments of the business across new and used businesses? And in general, whatever you can talk about, what you see on the dealer side, for the industry. That's my first question.
You see dealers mean in terms of supply, or you see them in terms of the health of dealers?
Just in terms of their willingness to spend on platform, or on, you know, your kinds of platforms, etc., for marketing, and for acquiring vehicles in the used side, both those things.
Yeah. We've generally seen, with I, I think we've been through a trend in, I think, the new car industry trend. So we've basically what we've seen till two, three years ago, maybe two years ago, that dealers and manufacturers, cutting or reluctant to spend because certain vehicles are not, available for supply. There were supply chain issues, etc. There were posts coming out of COVID. Then the volumes of sales have gone up. And now, demand seems good, and supply seems good. So we're in a favorable situation where supply is available, and demand is good as well. So dealers tend to spend, and manufacturers tend to spend too to increase sales because there is supply available. I think in the used car industry, it's very early days in monetization by itself, even though OLX is very strong at it. It's very, very early days.
The used car dealers have still not got used to spending large amounts of money on advertising or selling of vehicles. And I think that change is now ready to happen where, if dealers have to, you know, divert lots of their money towards digital advertising or spending money on selling the vehicles on platforms like OLX. So that trend is still, I would say, probably going to start in India now.
Good. Thanks, Vinay. And, my last question on the standalone business side, I, and I know you don't have guidance as such on the growth side. But I'm just wondering, if there's a certain growth rate you need for margins to expand, in FY25 versus, you know, what you had in FY24, is 15%-16% growth rate in the standalone business good enough for margins to expand? Given I ask that because obviously.
You know, whether you have 10% or you have 15% or you have 20% or 30%, margin expansion will probably happen in all our businesses. I think internally also, and we've said in the last call, we, and you've seen this in the consumer groups on 19%-26%. We are giving tremendous guidance to all our teams to improve margins. I think if we are a management or a company which is not only focused on revenue growth and customer growth and customer satisfaction and delight and building great product and tech, but we also believe in working around and making sure our margins continuously improve. And even over the last three-four years, the company has continuously demonstrated how their margins have gone up as increasing revenue.
We believe that this year, in addition, we should see, irrespective of revenue growth, we should see margin growth.
Good. Thanks. That's very helpful, Vinay. Thank you for those answers to our questions.
Thank you.
Thank you. That would be the last question for today. I would now like to hand the contents over to management for closing comments.
I just want to thank all of you for joining in for this one-hour session. We feel, you know, pretty optimistic about the position of the company as demonstrated as well in the foundation, the base we have from our last financial results in the Q4 of last year. Look forward to seeing you again in the next quarter of results. Thank you for joining in today. All the best. Thank you.
Thank you. On behalf of CarTrade Tech Limited, we conclude this conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.
Thank you.