Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to CarTrade Tech Limited Q2 FY25 earnings conference call. This conference call may contain forward-looking statements about the company, which are based on the beliefs, opinions, and expectations of the company as on the date of this call. These statements are not the guarantees of future performances and involves 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 an assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing Star and zero on your touch-tone telephone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Vinay Sanghi, Chairman and Managing Director of CarTrade Tech Limited.
Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you. Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to CarTrade's, you know, Q2 earnings call. I wanna, you know, we of course, we've uploaded our presentation and the financials for all of you to see in advance. I just wanna start off with saying that it's been a good quarter for the company. In this quarter in which we achieved the highest ever revenue and, you know, profit before tax in any quarter. We're the number one automotive platform in India across used classifieds, horizontal classifieds, and of course, in vehicle auctions. We received almost 77 million monthly active users across all our platforms, CarWale, BikeWale, OLX, et cetera.
I think what you know is more remarkable to drive the performance of the company is 95% of these users come through organic sources, which means we don't pay for these users to come onto the platform. We are now covering almost 450-plus physical locations. We auctioned at a rate of 1.4 million vehicles a year. Revenue for the quarter is at INR 172 crores, which is the highest ever, as I said. Adjusted EBITDA is at 57 crores, 56.8 crores, is also our highest ever. Profit after tax is 31, almost 31 crores, and, you know, as you know, we have strong cash balance, debt-free, with about INR 832 crores of surplus cash.
If you go to our consolidated results, which is on page six, as I said, our revenue is INR 172 crores. Revenue has grown by 27% in Q2 over last year. Half-yearly revenue is at INR 328 crores, which has grown by 35% year on year, you know, so the six-month results showing a 35% growth in revenue. If you see our margins, our EBITDA margins, EBITDA is up at INR 32.7 crores for the quarter, and EBITDA margin jumped from 15% last quarter to 21%, which shows the leverage in the business. With increase in revenue, you know, what we're able to demonstrate is improvement in our operating and EBITDA margins.
As you can see, even the EBITDA is up from INR 21.58 crores last quarter, which is almost a 50% jump in EBITDA, quarter on quarter. Fifty-four percent jump from last year. And half-yearly, EBITDA has jumped 104%, INR 54.28 crores consolidated from INR 26.65 crores last year. And then therefore, you see the margin gone up from 11% to 17% half-yearly. PBT is up by 44% to INR 37.14 crores for the quarter, and INR 61.29 crores for six months, which is up 48%, you know, half-yearly, from last year. And that should show the leverage in the business. You know, a 35% increase in revenue resulting in a 48% growth in the profit before tax.
PAT for the quarter first time at INR 30.72 crores, which is up 500% from last year, and 53.62 half-yearly, which is up 189% from last year, 18.55 crores. Generally, you've seen a very strong set of revenue and profit growth with increase in margins across all, you know, across all periods. If you look at adjusted EBITDA, which is just removing the stock cost and adding, you know, the interest income, it's at all-time high of INR 56.81 crores, up from INR 42.8 crores last quarter, and 37% year-on-year growth, and almost 100 crores for the six months ended, which is up 38% from last year.
Moving on with the consolidated results, we go to standalone results, which is for the consumer group, you know, contains CarWale, BikeWale, some of these brands. The revenue's up 23%. Operating revenue is up 23%, which is INR 55.62 crores. Other income is down because of the acquisition of OLX last year, our cash balances have gone down. Therefore, we see a slight dip in our interest income, but operating revenues are up 23% for the quarter, 20% six months, at INR 106 crores. It's been a strong quarter performance of the consumer group. I think that's the highest ever revenue in any quarter.
You see the employee costs and other costs well in control now, which shows the operating leverage, even though the revenue's up, you know, quarter on quarter and year on year. You see the actual costs, overall expenses are flat or close to flat, which is really resulting in this massive 164% growth Q on Q on EBITDA, and you know, last year, INR 73 lakhs becoming INR 18.4 crores of EBITDA in the first six months here, so massive growth in both EBITDA over the small increase in revenue, with increases in revenues. PBT again is showing a 71% up to INR 19 crores and, you know, half-yearly up at 30% to INR 32 crores.
When you look at profit after tax, 15.75 crores versus, you know, INR 12 crores last quarter and INR 10 crores last year, it's up to 55%, and INR 28 crores for the six months, you know, on the standalone side, it's up to 27%. So you see a strong operating performance here, slightly lower other income, just because of the reduction in cash balances with the acquisition of OLX. But overall, again, very, very strong operating metrics being reported in the standalone results. When you look at the remarketing results, which is on page 8, we had a modest growth of about 3% in the at INR 57.24, and 3% for the year at INR 105.84.
But we've kept our expenses under control, and there's been slight cost reduction, which has resulted in a 34% growth in profit before tax at INR 10.26 crores and INR 14 crores for the half yearly, which is up by 29% to last year. PAT is also up 32% at INR 7.59 crores and INR 10 crores for the six months ended at 26% up from the last year. So generally, a strong financial performance. We would have liked the revenue growth to be stronger, but the financial performance has been quite strong, even in Shriram Automall and the remarketing group. When you look at the OLX results, which is on page nine, OLX obviously, there's a growth over the previous quarter from 49.48 from 48.23.
It is difficult to compare over last year just because only two months of operation during the first half of last year, but at six months now, we've achieved a INR 97.72 crores revenue for the six months ended September 24. EBITDA is up, at, you know, Q-on-Q from INR 8.05 crores to INR 8.55 crores, and half yearly now at INR 16.6 crores. I see a small improvement margin from 17% gone to 18% quarter on quarter, and PBT is up as well.
PAT is slightly down, and that's partly only because of tax incurred on other income, on some of our interest income, we've incurred some tax, and that's why the PAT is slightly lower than the previous quarter. But generally, operations are stable. We feel it's a reasonably strong financial performance. Revenue growth is something, you know, we feel we'll achieve. A stronger revenue growth, something we'll achieve in the coming quarters, but generally a strong, stable performance from OLX as well. You know, this is a good summary of the consolidated and subsidiary accounts in finance, and operating metrics. I'd be happy to take questions now, you know, from each one of you. Thank you.
Thank you so much, sir. Hi, we will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone 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 now wait for a moment as the question queue assembles. We have the first question from the line of Siddhartha Bera from Nomura. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks, sir. And hi, sir, congrats on a good set of results, and happy Diwali. Greetings to the entire team as well.
Happy Diwali.
So first question I have on the OLX business. So if you see the ramp up, now it's been, like, close to one year, we have this business, we are operating and running this. How do you think has been the performance? Is many of the improvement still yet to play out, or do you think it is taking longer? If you can guide us about how to look at the revenue scale up in the OLX business, and some more color about which are the segments, any mix, or any more data, if you can share, in terms of OLX, how the business is changing or what are we doing here to sort of scale up the revenues here to be helpful?
Sure. I think happy Diwali to you as well, sir, of course. The second thing is, you know, we've over the last been about 11 months to the end of September from the acquisition of OLX. And actually, I mean, sorry, 13 months or so. And obviously, the attempt in those first 13 months was around stability of technology platforms, teams, recruiting all the product technology teams, you know, moving all of this technology and product to our own environment, stabilization and growth of traffic, consumer traffic, you know, processes and sales, et cetera, et cetera. And the segments are pretty much the same.
It's, you know, 45% of it is auto, used cars and used two-wheelers, and the rest is non-auto, which is led by real estate, jobs, electronics, mobiles, et cetera, et cetera. We've obviously, you know, there has been revenue growth in the last, you know, 13 months of operation during this period. And we feel the, you know, a lot of the things we've done and a lot of the foundation we've laid, the significant part of that growth will come in the future. You know, when you take over a business, I think you lay a foundation where for the next 5-10 years you can see that growth. So some of it has started to play out.
You know, obviously, the auto side is something we were more comfortable with, and obviously, a lot of the initiatives were launched on the automotive side first, but now we are also working heavily on the non-automotive side, which is other segments of real estate, mobiles and, you know, jobs, et cetera, et cetera, and we do feel in the coming quarters, you know, we'll start seeing a more, you know, a stronger growth in revenue, I would say, across various sectors which we're working on there, so we feel very confident about that. We also feel very confident about the quality of traffic and users of OLX, and the brand of OLX, right?
I mean, almost thirty million people a month come every month, and as you know, we spend no advertising on OLX, which just shows the affinity of the brand, right? As one of the leading or probably the leading used product platform in the country, right? Where people can come in and sell their products or buy used products, right? So we feel a lot of the initiatives we're taking will and a lot of the growth which will come will show in the next few quarters by the initiatives we've taken in the last thirteen months. But when we took over the business, it was important to bring full stability and transfer of technology and product to our environment first. So that's what we did, but we feel now...
They're actually working on the business very hard on various aspects of sales processes and other things to make sure and put up, you know, a strong foundation for growth in the future quarters coming ahead.
Got it, sir. So second question is on the consumer business, where we did see a very good growth sort of playing out. Here, again, if you can throw some light about how is the mix between OE and new and used car, and how, where is typically the stronger traction, if you are seeing any particular segment worth highlighting?
Yeah, the consumer group is mostly 85% new vehicles, right? As you know, and there itself, the car industry has been at a very modest 2%-3% growth in the first six months of the year. In fact, in the last 2-3 months, it's been declining, and the two-wheeler industry also had a robust growth of 18%-19% for six months, you know, the industry's been. We've actually seen growth across segments, across all new, used segments. I feel one of the even though the industry of car growth, the growth in the car industry only 2%-3%, it is still, you know, at a high base of last year, and that helped us as well.
So we feel good about the car industry as well as the two-wheeler industry and the used car industry the way it stands. Some of the results have come in the first six months, and we just hope, and we think that some of this will play out still in the next two, three quarters coming. So it's been a reasonably strong performance from the consumer group, both on the car side, bike side, new and used, both, I think.
Got it. Sir, lastly, on this auction business, now volume seems to have gone up quite a bit compared to last quarter or year in the current quarter. So are we looking at any signs of turnaround in this business also as we enter the second half of the year? Or do you think this business also may take still longer for some of the recovery to play out?
We think that this, you know, definitely seems to have bottomed out, the repossession cycle, right? It doesn't seem to be getting, you know, it seems to have bottomed out. We do feel confident that this business now, it seems to be, you know, getting better. And of course, the other segments, when repossession has gone down, we've built other segments which are also helping at this point of time. So it's a mixture, a little bit of cost control, a little bit of revenue growth, but we do feel that in the next couple of quarters, some it should deliver a reasonable performance. And it's hard for us to right now say whether repossession in banks and NBFCs is getting stronger or not.
I mean, you know, it's a little early to say that, but we do feel it's bottomed out. That's for sure.
Got it, sir. Thanks a lot. I'll come back and thank you.
Thanks, yeah. Thank you. Yeah.
Thank you so much, sir. The next question is from the line of Ankit K from SmartSync. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you for taking the question, and congratulations on the good set of numbers.
Thank you.
Yeah. So my first question is related to the, to all the three segments, actually. So if I look at the segmental, revenues, coincidentally, all three businesses are having roughly the quarterly revenue run rate of INR 50 crore today. And, but when you look at the life cycle of all the three businesses, probably they, all three are completely different in their life cycle revenue. So I just wanted to know from your side, I'm not looking for any guidance, but just directionally, how do you see these three businesses, three distinctly different kind of businesses growing or doing from here over the next, say, three to five years? Qualitatively speaking, not, I'm not looking at any numbers per se.
Yeah.
How do you see them going, yeah?
Sure. Yeah, thank you for the question. I think the first part is with the consumer group, which is CarWale, BikeWale, is 85% new vehicles, right? Which is cars and two-wheelers, and obviously, you know, we feel with the car industry, you know, India is the largest two-wheeler market in the world, right? It is also in the top five car markets of the world, and naturally, for our country to grow, when you look at the penetration of cars in India, if you are going to be at 30 or 40 per thousand, the penetration extremely low, so you do feel over a long period of time, three to five years, what you've asked, the car industry will grow and the two-wheeler industry will continue to grow, with personal mobility on the rise.
And therefore, we feel very strongly of the health of the consumer group by itself, which is 85% dependent on new vehicles, right? We also feel, you know, for us, if you had seen two, three years ago, it was harder because, you know, when there was a semiconductor issue and other supply chain issues in the automotive industry, and demand was more than supply, it affected us because it stopped manufacturers and dealers from advertising on our platform, because they didn't need to. They were, you know, sold out because of just the availability of vehicles was low.
When availability is high, which is what the situation is today, where supply is more than demand, it's a little more favorable for the company, and we do see a strong, you know, demand cycle for the next three-to-five years in the automotive industry, but we also see supply being available, and therefore, we feel very confident about, you know, the consumer group by itself over, you know, a three-to-five period.
Obviously, what our attempt is not only, you know, to go, as we said earlier, in CarWale or in BikeWale, to move from a situation or go deeper into our transactions with our manufacturers and dealers, and for our customers to not only be able to find their cars, select their cars, you know, connect to a dealer online, but also to borrow, buy cars online. We're moving and building technology and going deeper and deeper into that process for, you know, all our customers and dealers and manufacturers. Naturally, we feel confident about that. On the Shriram Automall, sorry, in the last year and a half, the repossession-...
of vehicles coming down and supply to us coming down from that source, we had built a whole retail segment, which is almost 40% of our business today. So obviously, we believe optimistic about growing the retail side of the business, but we also believe in times to come, with financing going up, you know, demand for vehicles going up, on new vehicles, repossession will also grow. And obviously, in the next three to five years, we feel both the retail and the repossession market will grow, and, you know, Shriram Automall will be a strong player, will be a big beneficiary of that. So we feel confident about that. And then the third, you know, is OLX, where the TAM of the business we operate in is limitless, right? It is basically handles all used products in India.
It's the number one or leading place where any consumer can sell a used product or buy a used product. So we obviously feel that TAM in India is just, as I said, limitless. I can't put a number to it even. We have a large set of Indian consumers who, I mean, as some of the data we've shared before, more than 30 million users a month come on OLX to sell a product or buy a used product, and we have obviously a significant leadership here. So there's limitless growth opportunities here, whether it's used cars, whether it's used bikes, whether it's used mobile phones, or, you know, goods, household goods, like furniture, et cetera, or even, you know, homes.
and we feel very confident about OLX's future here as well over the next three to five years, so on the whole, across all three businesses, we see tremendous amounts of levers to grow. I think one thing I want to add here, as you might know, that, and we've demonstrated successfully over the last five, six quarters, is that every increase in revenue in this company, we, you know, results in a very strong profit growth. We have a lot of levers in our business, and normally when our revenues go up, only a small amount of manpower cost goes up with it.
Mm-hmm.
But a large part of the revenue growth, you know, leads to profitability, which you've seen.
Got it. Got it. Thank you so much for the detailed answer. Is it, is it fair to assume that, say, three to five years down the line, probably, our, consumer business will form a large chunk of our revenue, compared to what it is today? Because that is probably the fastest growing also.
No, we don't think so. I think we think all the three businesses have opportunities. I mean, they're all similar size today, but we don't. It's hard for us to say that one way is better than the other. They all have their reasonably opportunity to grow, so I won't want to predict that the consumer group-
Yeah.
will be the largest or OLX will be the largest or Shriram Automall will be the largest. I won't want to predict that right now.
Yeah.
But they all have the levers to grow.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Got it. Got it. Yeah. So second question is related to the competition. So ever since we got listed and we started doing concalls and presentations, one slide which has been always there is the is what you share regarding the Google Trends, where CarWale is always on top compared to all the other competitors which you share. When I look at the on-the-ground feedback from maybe customers or dealers, we get some really good feedback about the competitors also in terms of the business which is happening. So can you share one reason why on Google Trends we are so high on the chart and consistently for years?
It's a brand, right? So, so Google Trends is basically how many people search your name, whether it's OLX or CarWale or BikeWale, into the search for your name, right? And come to the platform, which means that it is, the number of people who remember CarWale versus other people. That's what it is. It's a, it's a digital brand index. And that's what it is. It's got nothing to do with dealers, it's got to do with consumers. It's, it's, it's the reason that 77 million MAUs come to these platforms. Just to give you context, 77 million people a month come to CarWale, BikeWale, and OLX. That's a huge number! And 95% come in an organic manner, which means we don't pay for it, completely free of advertising.
That's why we have the margins we have in the company, because 95% of our users come without any advertising cost, which is partly a reflection of Google Trends, as you see, right? And which is why, you know, the consumer group or CarTrade Tech as a company is extremely profitable, is because of the brand affinity of CarWale, BikeWale or OLX. These are strong brands now in the businesses we run. And that's a reflection of Google Trends. It's got nothing to do with talking to dealers, actually. It's not connected with that. It's a consumer.
Okay. Thank you so much. That was very helpful.
Thank you.
All the best for the future. Thank you.
Thank you, sir. Participants, if you wish to ask a question, you may press star and one on your touchtone telephone. The next question is from the line of Sachin Dixit from JM Financial. Please go ahead.
Hi, Vinesh. Congrats on the set of results. Me coming to questions, I wanted to understand that we discussed that on OLX side, obviously, there are a bunch of low-hanging fruits that we can probably cater to, first of all. I wanted to just check on that-
Sorry, the voice got you smudged. Can you say it again, please?
Sorry. I was saying that on OLX side, we have discussed that there are a bunch of low-hanging fruits that we can cater to in order to deliver the growth that we wanted. I want to just get an update on that. Where do we stand on that? Have we seen any ramp-up in terms of advertising income coming from OLX or any price hikes or any such things? Can you please give an update on that?
Sure. You know, in OLX, I think a lot of the things we've been working on are first the automotive side, which is used car, the used car classified side of OLX, right? And then the non-automotive side. There's also an advertising side, which is, you know, driven by advertisers coming and putting display advertising on OLX, right? The three different revenue sources in a way. That is. I would say a lot of the work has gone in. I wouldn't say that, you know, a lot of the revenue, what we, you know, what we feel, you know, would kick in very quickly, has all come in. I think you will- we will probably see some of this growth coming in next two to three quarters.
And you know, obviously, a lot of the foundation platform work is done right, which is, you know, the product side, technology side, people side, right? Processes side. So many small, small things after the M&A. But as I said, you know, some of it is coming in terms of revenue growth, as you can see, and some of it is, a lot of it is yet to come. And we just feel like, you know, OLX is the kind of platform where we'll always be saying this over the next three to five years, because this is so much, the time is limitless, as we say, right? Once we get one side, we go to the other side, and it will go deeper and deeper to monetize more and more aspects of, of the platform, right? And get more and more consumers on board.
So it's a nonstop effort. I think we, we all are spending lots and lots of hours, you know, on it. And we do feel in the coming quarters, you'll see some of that. And even in the coming years, not just the quarters, because, as I said, there's just no limit to what can be achieved in OLX over the next five to ten years.
So understood. So, quickly on the revenue side, on OLX again, right? So we delivered roughly 2% QOQ growth. Now, if we recall, like, when this acquisition happened last year, we did talk about almost 20-plus% plus of growth. In order to deliver that, it looks like we need to deliver anywhere between 30-odd%, 32-odd% YOY growth over H2. Do you think we are on track for that or that's going to be a miss on that piece?
I don't know. I don't want to give any guidance on revenue. You know, as I said, we don't normally give any guidance. So we're working on obviously all the growth levers. And, you know, some of them will happen next six months, some will happen the six months after that. But all I can say is we do see a very long-term, you know, growth opportunity here. I don't want to talk about the next three months or six months very specifically. And the one thing that's happening in OLX is that every quarter we get better than the last one, right? And not just in OLX, I think that applies in the consumer group as well, where we actually make progress every single quarter. When you see the numbers, almost every single quarter, you are better, right?
So we keep doing that, and some of it will play out now, some will play out after three months, six months. But, you know, the effort is to continuously do that. And as I said again, when we grow our revenue, the margin expansion is quite high, right? The moment we grow revenue.
Right. Yeah, that's fair. Coming to New Auto side, quickly on that, we slightly delivered close to 23% growth in the quarter, while auto industry continues to struggle to say the least. Do you see this trend sustaining? Obviously, you have highlighted that this is probably the best time and on the defense can speak.
Yeah, we see, we see some of this continuing. I think, I do feel like October, December, normally is a better quarter than even, you know, than even July to September, normally every year. I don't think that's changed at all. I do think October, December, it is going to be better. And probably this trend might continue. It's possible that, you know, I do see that volumes are generally at the highest ever for two-wheeler and cars, even though the growth is low for cars or actually no growth, but the volumes are pretty high and supply is higher than demand. So it's reasonably a favorable market condition, I would say.
So the reason why I asked that question was last year in H2, our YOY growth dipped quite sharply compared to H1. So that's why I am asking this question. So
The growth rate may be lower.
Yeah, growth rate. Yeah, growth rate dipped.
Yeah.
So which is where I'm coming from, like, do you see that growth rate, like this 23% YOY growth rate sustaining in H2? Or we can
I don't want to give a guidance on growth rate, but all I can say is normally the market is just slightly better, and I do feel like these quarters will be better than the previous quarter. That's what I do feel, but I can't. I don't want to give a growth rate guidance.
No worries. Thanks so much. Happy Diwali.
Thank you. Thanks, Sachin. Thank you. Happy Diwali!
Thank you, sir. We have the next question from the line of Akshay Satija from Alpha Invesco. Please go ahead.
Hi, congratulations on good quarter earnings, and Happy Diwali to all of you.
Happy Diwali.
So my first question will be for our remarketing business. So our EBITDA per car seems to have increased from what it was in Q1. So I just wanted to understand, is it because of contribution from maybe retail sales, higher number of retail sales, or it's just that you said the operating leverage, that you sold more cars? What was the retail percentage?
It's also some cost. It's also the remarketing. There was some cost reduction, but-
Okay.
It will also, you know, the product mix has not changed much, but there is some cost reduction as well, which will help.
Okay. If you could specify the numbers for retail and B2B that you do for remarketing?
You know, Aneesha, you want to get it? But I think it's 40% is retail, which is quite similar to what it was earlier. 39 earlier, it's 40 now, I think. So it's quite similar, okay. Not much has changed.
Okay. Sir, could you also share the new versus used car ratio for the consumer business? And if you could just go a little into detail for the after business that we have. So what would be sort of revenues? My belief is that we report after under the consumer business. So what would be the revenues or volumes for the after business, and how many stores that we hold of after as of now?
Sure. So I think the first part, about 86% is new in the consumer group. That's one, which is pretty similar to what it was in 85, and now it's 86%. That's the first question. The second question is after. So, you know, Aneesha, you want to tell how many outlets we have? But the after plus outlets are actually growing. What's that? What is that?
One sixty-five.
165 are the number of outlets.
Yes.
We normally don't discuss the volume and the revenues yet, but the 165 outlets, something obviously we are growing. And not only are we growing it here, I think OLX has a very similar number of, OLX-branded stores as well for used cars, right? Am I right, Aneesha? Similar number.
Uh, one-
... Sorry, what?
Of 170.
170. So there are only actually 335 such stores now. So the intent of these stores, I'll be honest, was and still is the ability for a consumer to come online and, you know, select a good certified car and then buy it with a, you know, and eventually buy it in a one-click experience so they can actually have a completely online, you know, experience. And we're working towards that. But the coverage actually improved with the OLX acquisition. So 165 actually become more, it's about 330 now, or 340 stores.
Okay. So the final question, could you just elaborate a little on the, the Automall, stores and on that front? To say we list roughly 1.2 million cars a year, but we are selling only 20% of those cars. Just wanted to understand what happens to the rest of the cars. Are they kept as an inventory? Not with us, but, with someone who's listing it with us. Just wanted to understand, is that inventory carried forward to the next quarters or, just wanted to understand the business plan.
Sure, sure. For you know, first, last part of that, inventory does not come physically. It's not. I don't have the exact number, right? But a large percentage only comes online. It doesn't ever come physically to us in the auto malls.
Okay.
Some percentage comes physically, and even in that percentage, if the seller decides not to sell it, they can take the vehicle back and then give it back, you know, whenever they feel, you know, they would like to sell it again. So the 20, I think it's 25% or 28% is a conversion ratio, which is-
Okay.
Of every hundred vehicles coming to auction, that many get sold. I think that's what it is.
Okay. Okay. Do you see this number probably could go up or...?
No, it's been quite stable, actually. It's not gone up. It's been quite stable. I think the conversion ratio would probably be stable. Our attempt here is, of course, to improve conversion ratio by getting more buyers and, but it's also to, increase the volume on supply. I think they're two different efforts here. But we don't see much. There's not been much change over the last couple of years in the percentage, actually.
All right. That's it from my side. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, you may press Star and One on your touchtone phone if you wish to ask a question. We have next question from the line of Vijit Jain from Citigroup. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks.
Thank you.
Hi, Vinay. Hi, Aneesha. Congratulations on great 2Q across the three businesses. My first question is, you know, so, you know, I note on the presentation that organic traffic growth was especially stronger than the overall growth this quarter, but it. You did increase your standalone marketing spend about 20% this year, this quarter, right? So my question, I guess, is, is that with an eye towards the next half of the year, are you seeing any trends which makes you want to increase your marketing spend here?
I think a related question to that is, you know, in addition to what you show on Google Trends, one can see on app traffic and other third-party data sources as well, that you have taken, you know, market share in both cars and bikes from the competitors this year, especially on the bike side. If you could give a view on, you know, what is happening there really, is your business in the bike side, for example, particularly higher now this year versus last year?
Yeah. Okay. The first is the, marketing spend. No, marketing spend-
Yeah.
-in these businesses is very, I would say tactical, but it's very, it's not brand driven expense or traffic driven expense. It's very targeted at manufacturers who may want to sell a certain kind of product and who are spending money on advertising, and we try and, you know, build specific consumers for them, and that traffic and that advertising is included with them. 20% is up, but it's a very small number. I mean, the numbers are really small here, right?
Right.
The total-
Yes. Yeah, yeah.
Insignificant. So the amounts are very insignificant here. That's one.
Right.
I would not think and correlate that with any increase in advertising or any significant increase in advertising spend in the next six months. I would not think that would happen. It may be directly a little bit in correlation with a bit of revenue, but it's not likely to go up substantially in the next six months at all. This is also not driving the growth in traffic, as we said. Actually, the organic percentages are going up. It's 95% now across platforms, so it is going up, the brands are getting stronger. Our consumer traffic actually in absolute terms, if you see, it in the deck as well and on the last two slides, is substantially up. You know, the quantity of traffic up cannot be done by advertising.
This is just done on brand and organic places. Two-wheelers has gone up a lot, and so has cars gone up. So both traffic on both counts has gone up. You know, we do feel that one is that, you know, as I said earlier, the demand for cars is not down. It's just that the growth rate is down, right? If you look at the first six months, actually, it's grown by 2-3%, so it's not negative, right? Number one.
Mm-hmm.
Number two, the two-wheeler industry has been very, very strong. We've just shown growth in every parameter, right? I mean, the volumes have gone up, traffic is of course going up, everything is going up. So, it is, it's a massive opportunity for us as well, the two-wheeler side, but both cars and two-wheelers have been quite healthy. So, in fact, the traffic growth has been very, very healthy, I would say.
Also some of the new launches that have fueled this, right? I mean-
You had a couple of big launches in the car market, where there's been a lot of interest on traffic, right? I mean, the traffic side.
Hmm. Right. So Vinay, any broad sense on, you know, I don't know if you want to, if you don't want to disclose, you know, split between, say, two-wheelers and four-wheelers, maybe some sense in terms of, you know, what growth rate you saw in the two categories this year?
It's been strong on both sides, I would say. I mean, two-wheelers on a smaller base, right? So it's outpaced the growth, but generally, it's been strong both places. The revenue split is something... Aneesha, have you given the revenue split on two-wheelers and four-wheelers?... No, not yet.
Okay.
Not yet. Not yet. Okay, it's actually getting mixed up between OEM and dealers, not so much on two-wheelers and cars.
Right.
That's given the OEM and dealer split.
Right.
Yeah, but the... I think we see robustness in both, actually. Cars and two wheelers, both have grown.
Correct. Great. And my next question is, you know, the remarketing business, right? So, I guess, the shift, the mix shifted a little bit in the repo favor this quarter, because obviously I can see, you know, the auctions went up, but the realizations went down. So, and, and-
I think there's some suppressed pricing of used products as well, used vehicles as well.
Mm.
Which has affected a little bit, but generally, that's just a repossession, seems to have bottomed out. It's always hard to predict, because it's not something in our control.
Right.
But seems to have bottomed out, is what I said earlier in the call. It seems to be a little better.
Great. And, you have, you know, I mean, I think you mentioned it, around the end of four Q results, but, you have added about 100 locations across, you know, Shriram Automall, abSure and OLX this calendar year, right? I think last four Q, you were around 350, now you're at 450, whereabouts. So could you give us a sense of where, you know, these additions are coming? Are these mostly in abSure here or in-
They're mostly in abSure Signature and OLX. They're not in Shriram Automall, they're very few. So it's-
Right.
It's almost all there.
Right. And so basically about 50-100 store adds on the abSure side.
Probably hundred, probably closer. I don't know the exact number, but almost all the additions will be there. I mean, I think the-
Right.
I don't think more than three, four automalls in SAMIL, right? Couldn't be more than, I mean, maybe five. They don't, we don't really add very many automalls. So it mostly come in OLX and abSure.
Got it. So with abSure, do you think you could? This is a pace that you could probably continue to-
Logically, the pace, yeah. There's a lot of work to be done on the pace, which is why it probably will continue on both the OLX side and the abSure/Signature outlets. What we're looking at doing is obviously adding a lot more tech and product to it, and over time, as consumers want, the whole idea is getting us to also give a differentiated experience to a user on CarWale or on OLX, right? And I think that is still something we're working on. Distribution seems to be catching on, but now we've got to also, when you come as a consumer, provide this, you know, one click, like, ability to buy a used car if you want to do so, right? I think that maturity will also come in consumers over time, right? So it's a combination of all of that.
Got it. And my last question, Vinay. Just the OLX business, given the nature of the business, the October, November, December quarter should have a fair bit of seasonality related uptick. I mean, not just. I mean, I know you said that for the auto business, but also the non-auto part.
It should be better. It should be better, because normally October, November... October is definitely normally better. November, the holidays and stuff, so you don't always know.
Right.
Because Diwali, you know, by the time people come back, by then, businesses really start all over again, right? But generally, this OLX is normally, you know, normally a little better than July, September, generally. Yeah, yeah.
So the question I was trying to, you know, the answer I was trying to get to also in part, Vinay, was, you know, we have a lot of these festive season sales that the e-commerce platforms run, and I would imagine some of that will drive traffic to yours for used transactions. Is that a fair understanding of how this would work?
No, I don't think they're really connected with, even though you're right, these e-commerce platforms have sales. I'm not convinced they're directly correlated with, you know, the traffic on OLX or, definitely not CarWale. But, but I would think that, you know, just this, just the season is normally better for anybody, right? I think-
Mm-hmm.
... normally, October is always, you know, this year, Diwali and Dussehra both happen to be in the same month as well. So it normally, it is a strong month always.
Got it. And yeah, yeah, understood. Thanks, Vinay. Those are my questions, and Happy Diwali to you and Aneesha.
Happy Diwali. Thank you, Vijit. Thank you.
Thank you so much, sir. We have the next question from the line of Rahul Ranade from Goldman Sachs Asset Management. Please go ahead.
Yeah, yeah. Hi, hi. Thanks for the opportunity.
Hi, Rahul.
Happy Diwali, Vinay.
Happy Diwali, Rahul.
Yeah. Hi, hi. So just a couple of questions. So one, you got answered partially in terms of seasonality for OLX. So you're saying there could be some bit of seasonality element in Q3. So that is our side. But just on the other side, OEM to dealer, we used to share the split earlier on, do we share that now?
Yeah, we can give it. Can you give the OEM? Sixty-seven... Was it sixty-seven?
Yes, sixty-seven, thirty-
67%. 67, 33.
Okay.
It's not changed much. I think it's just more or less been the same.
Okay. So, is it the right understanding when you say, you know, new to used is 85-15?
Yeah.
Then this 67, 33, this 67 is out of the 85, and then the 33 is a split between the new and used?
That is right.
Okay. Okay, got it. Got it. And lastly, just wanted to check in terms of progress on, you know, these allied, you know, services that we, you know, kind of talk when you say, you know, buying vehicles at the click of a button.
Yeah.
So, let's say financing or insurance, have they started contributing to our revenue in any way in terms of?
They are very small revenues. Insurance is not, financing is a very small, you know, revenue contributor. But the important thing is the tech and all of that has started to play, right? So you can see on almost all our platforms now that one click to get a loan, right? I think, and those are the kind of things, and a lot of the products we launch, whether it's abSure or these loans, to enable a lot of the future transactions might come online... as consumers want to do more and more.
So we, when you buy a loan today and you come to CarWale or BikeWale or OLX even now, and you apply online and you get sanctioned instantly by multiple, multiple banks and lenders, you know, you get a sanction, but from sanction to disbursement is not necessarily that all the banks and, you know, other partners are ready to at this point or able to do it even at this point. It requires also documentation, KYC of customers, et cetera, et cetera, as per their processes. So it's not fully. I would say the product, although gives you a sanction instantly, it doesn't still probably give you a loan in your account in the next, you know, one minute or something, right? I mean, the disbursements, the sanction disbursement cycle is not fully online yet.
Got it. Got it. So, the meaningful accretion in terms of monetization only will happen when that piece also falls in place, is that right?
I think the important monetization might improve it, but that's not the intent here. The intent was always that we give this journey to a car buyer or two-wheeler buyer or used product buyer, that listen, when you buy a product, you can get a loan instantly, so you can buy the car online. If you, like, a large part of two-wheelers and cars are financed, so if you don't get the loan instantly, then buying a car on one click is almost impossible, right? Because if you want a loan, the journey is anyway going to get broken, right? And I think that's what we work with banks and, you know, other stakeholders to see that this journey can be complete online.
Hmm. Got it.
I think that was more from a customer experience angle. Monetization is one thing, you know, but it's also experience.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Understood, and just lastly, you know, this is not very CarTrade or CarWale specific, but just wanted to understand from a financing penetration standpoint, if you know, you were to look, let's say, four, five years back to now, for used vehicles, both used cars and used two-wheelers, do you see a significantly greater proportion of, you know, people going for financing for their used vehicles? Or, you know, is it more or less the same?
New cars, so new cars, as you know, for the last four, five years, maybe last ten years, it's been a very, very high percentage.
Yeah.
In used cars, we've actually seen it being not move much. I feel like the industry has grown, one. And second, the other thing is that we still don't have, you know, a large number of organized financials financing used cars, right? A lot of people buying used cars are taking loans, you know, from unorganized sources, right? It could be a personal loan, it could be, you know, it like a personal unsecured loan, or it could be even be, you know, from an employer or someone else, right? So you find... You feel like, you know, there's a long, long way to go in used financing in India.
Hmm.
It's actually a massive opportunity. I think, for any bank or any NBFC, it's just a big, big opportunity.
Understood. Understood. Thanks. Thanks for your time.
Thank you. Thanks a lot.
Thank you so much, sir. The next question is from the line of Mohit Madiwala from Envision Capital. Please go ahead.
Hello, and thank you for taking my questions.
Hello.
Great set of numbers, so congratulations on that. Just a few bookkeeping questions. Number one, I can see on the balance sheet that, in the non-current assets, other financial assets have gone up, while in the current, other financial assets have gone down, kind of, you know, similar amount. Just wanted to understand what that movement has been firstly.
What is that, Aneesha? You want to explain that?
I'm sorry, Mohit, your question is that your other financial assets have come down and the investments have gone up? Is that the question?
No. So my question is that in the current assets part of it, it has gone down by about 50 crore from March thirty-first to September thirtieth. Whereas in the non-current part, it has gone up by 58 crore. So just wanted to understand what this is related to.
Just give me a second, because most of it was because the fixed deposits we would have moved it to investment in mutual funds. Let me look at it.
Okay, got it.
Must be right. And so it was in, so back on, Aneesha?
Both, when I was in, but no other change.
Okay.
Cash balance has improved by INR 50 crores.
Okay. Okay, next question was basically that, there's been a bad debt written off of... It's a very small amount, but a INR 75 lakh. So just wanted to understand where this has come from.
Aneesha, you want to... I don't remember, I don't remember which client it was, but is it a consumer group?
Yes, we have done a cleanup for debtors which are more than three years. We have kept provisions in the only what was beyond three years is what we've written off this year.
Yeah. So what we do is, the provisioning, of course, as per, you know, our accounting policies-
Right.
-and then we move from provisions to writing off. I think that's what's called, we move from provision bucket to the write-off bucket.
Yes, yes. It's fully provided for.
Okay, okay. Got it.
But it's fully provided for earlier anyway, is what, I'm sure she's saying.
Okay, got it. And the ESOP costs, we are still at a run rate of INR six crore per quarter, right? So this is expected to continue going ahead?
Yeah, I think for this year it is going to be similar. It should, you know, as per the vesting schedule, come down from next year further.
Yeah, right.
At this point, we'll continue, yeah, through this year, and I think it comes down next year, as per the vesting schedules.
For FY 2025, we would still be at around a full year, 24 crore, kind of, on an ESOP cost?
That's right. That's right.
It will be slightly lower than FY 2026.
It'll come down in 2025. In 2026, it'll come down. That's correct.
Okay, got it. And, just one last question. What would be a reasonable kind of overall tax rate to assume for the full year FY 2025? Because we are, currently at around 21%, on an effective tax rate. So just wanted to understand where we can end for the full year, given all the OLX, kind of, let's say, losses?
... would have been absorbed this month.
I think there is no, Aneesha has correctly come on, but there is no tax in OLX, right? And there is no tax in the standalone entity. There's only tax in Shriram Automall. The tax we're seeing on the standalone entity is deferred tax, which has come from the change in the budget on how, you know, our treasury income is being treated, right? I think it's a full change from long-term capital gains tax on debt funds, right? Which is the entry you see. It's not actually pertaining to the quarter, it's pertaining to a previous period. So-
Right, I see.
Yeah, so the deferred tax will probably continue a couple of more quarters this year, and then it will go away. It'll not be there anymore. So but generally, there's no tax in the stand-alone or in OLX this year.
Right. Okay. So I think I misspoke previously. The effective tax rate for this quarter was 17%, so that's why-
That is mostly deferred tax, which is-
Right. Right, right.
By changing the budget, right, when they moved this indexation on-
Okay.
Mutual funds.
Got it. Got it. So even for the full year, it would be at, like, what? Below 25%?
It's exactly the same.
Okay.
It's exactly the same as the year. Yeah.
Great. Great. Okay, thank you so much, and best of luck.
The effective tax will be lower because the profit goes up.
Right.
The effective tax rate should come down. This amount of deferred tax is identical for the next two quarters.
Okay, great. Great.
It's not an ... Am I right, Aneesha?
Yes.
This is exactly the same amount.
Yes.
So the profit went up, the effective tax you'll see will go down, actually. Because on our normal business income, there's no tax.
Okay, understood. Great. Thank you, sir, and good luck for the future.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you so much. We have the next question from the line of Sachin Dixit from JM Financial. Please go ahead.
Hi, sorry. I had a couple of bookkeeping questions as well. So the first one being that when I'm adding the depreciation expense across the three segments, it's not matching up with the consolidated number by a decent margin. Why is that the case?
What is not matching, sorry?
Depreciation expense. This is consistent across a few years and quarters, and this is what we keep on seeing.
Yes, Sachin.
You're saying when you add up depreciation doesn't total? Is that what you're saying?
Yes, because there's an entry at consolidation, Sachin. There is a contract asset that we have created on the SAMIL acquisition. That entry gets passed only at consolidation, so the one plus one will not equal to the consolidated number of depreciation. It's an entry which comes from set of accounts.
Is it fair to assume that we use that plug to be a part of Shriram Automall business or the remarketing business, when you think of segments?
No, it's a very specific entry for the Shriram acquisition, which was done in 2018, where a contract asset was created. It's a depreciation on that particular asset which is created in the consolidated set of accounts. It's not, it's not to do with OLX or Consumer Group. It's only for the Shriram acquisition.
Yeah, understood. My second question is on lease liability. So we are seeing that the lease liability went up by roughly ten odd CR between March thirty-first and September thirty. Considering that the business is largely non-asset heavy, where are these lease liabilities rising from?
It's also from OLX, right? I think that's where it come from.
Yeah.
Correct. Yeah. It rentals for OLX, right? Because it's only been two months of the year. Last year was only two months, one and a half months, and this year is the whole year. Makes sense.
But this is a balance sheet entry, right? You are giving a snapshot as of March thirty-first or September thirtieth. Number of months, counted, that should not make a change.
Sachin, which number are you comparing? The balance sheet earlier-
Yeah. In the balance sheet, these liabilities as of March thirty-first were 112 CR. They went to 122 this September thirtieth. What are these liabilities? Where are these coming from?
The increase is coming from SAMIL. There were seven million added in SAMIL, year on, I mean, from, to compare to that year, from March to September.
Understood. Understood. All right, thanks so much. That's it.
Thank you so much. We will take this as our last question for the day. I would now like to hand the conference over to management for closing comments.
Thank you, everybody, for joining on this call, and we are quite, you know, buoyed by the quarter we've just had, and look forward to talking to you again in the next quarter. Happy Diwali to you and all your families. Thank you, everybody. 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.