Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Q3 FY25 earnings conference call of CarTrade Tech Limited. 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 date of this call. These statements are not guarantees of the 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, the Chairman and Founder of CarTrade Tech Limited. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you. Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to the Q3 earnings call. It's been a really strong quarter for the company, and in the next few minutes, I'll try and run you through some of the key highlights. We have circulated a presentation in advance. If you look at slide three and the first part of the presentation is, of course, as you know, we've had record-breaking revenue and profits. Quarter three revenues stood at a record INR 193 crores, and the profit after tax at INR 46 crores. We've had exceptional growth from all three business verticals, and all our verticals have delivered the highest-ever revenues and profits and margins. For the nine months of the year, revenues surged by 32%, EBITDA grew by 100%, and profit after tax zoomed to INR 99 crores. A Q3 versus a Q2, which is consecutive quarters, the profit surged sharply by 48%.
What's driving this growth? A consumer group, which is CarWale and BikeWale, revenue increased 38% year-on-year, resulting in a profit after tax growth of 172%. We achieved a 35% margin in this quarter in our consumer group business, which is now getting to be a benchmark of excellence in the industry. A remarketing business, which has been where growth has been a challenge in the last few quarters, has delivered a 28% growth in revenue in the quarter and also has 178% profit after tax growth, and OLX, where on a quarter-by-quarter basis, we've seen continuous growth, we have had an 80% surge in our profits. In OLX, you remember, from the date of us acquiring it last year, we've always had a growth quarter. Every consecutive quarter has done better than the previous.
There's a lot of work to be done there, but we obviously feel very optimistic about OLX in the year's future. If you look at slide four, it talks about our first three quarters of the year. As you can see, from the first quarter to the third quarter, we've had a 23% growth in revenue within the same year. The EBITDA has grown 132% from INR 21.58 crores in the first quarter to INR 50 crores in quarter three, which would mean a 132% rise in EBITDA within two quarters. Overall margins have increased 28% on a consolidated basis for EBITDA. Profit after tax from INR 22.90 crores, INR 22 crores 90 lakhs in quarter one, has gone to INR 45.53 crores in quarter three. It's shown not only strong Y-on-Y growth, but our business has shown strong Q-on-Q growth in revenues, EBITDA, and profitability.
If you look at the next slide, slide five, we have continued to be the number one automotive platform in the country, the number one news platform in the country, the number one vehicle auction platform in the country. If you look at traffic, we've achieved 79 million monthly active unique visitors across all our three platforms. As we have shared earlier, we have three platforms: CarWale, BikeWale, and OLX India, which get more than 115 million customers per year, which is more than 10% of India's population. It comes to three different platforms within our group, which is a very, very strong. It gives you a very strong sense of the brands: CarWale, BikeWale, and OLX. 95% of these users come organically, which means we don't pay for the traffic, and that reflects in our strong EBITDA and profit margins.
We are now out of 450-plus physical locations for Shriram Automall outlets, abSure outlets, as well as OLX India outlets. The auction volume went up, and we are auctioning at the rate of 1.5 million vehicles a year now. As I've already covered, revenues is INR 193 crores, adjusted EBITDA, which takes into account ESOPs, as well as our interest income is up INR 70.2 crores, which is almost like a cash proxy for us. Profit after tax that we've disclosed is INR 45.5 crores, and our cash balance has increased to INR 885 crores. If you look at slide six, which is our consolidated results, the revenues have grown 27% year-on-year to INR 193 crores, 32% growth for nine months at INR 521 crores. EBITDA surged 98% for the quarter at INR 50 crores and INR 104 crores for the nine months, which is at 100% growth.
As I've again said, EBITDA margins are 28% versus last year's 18% in the same quarter, which is up 10 basis points, which is almost 10 basis points in the quarter to last year compared to last year. Profit stands at INR 46 crores versus the loss the previous year, and INR 99 crores for nine months was, of course, a small loss in the previous year. If you look at slide seven, which is our standalone results, you'll see it has highest-ever revenues, of course, on the standalone accounts, 38% growth in revenue for the three months, 27% growth in revenue for nine months, which, of course, led to a massive growth in profitability, 237% growth in EBITDA for the three months of the quarter in the consumer group business, 442% growth in EBITDA for the nine months ended, which is at INR 42 crores EBITDA.
PAT stands at INR 172 crores up in our standalone accounts, and PAT for nine months stands at a growth of 70%. Again, as I said, 35% margin in our standalone business is now getting best in class. Many of you had asked over the last many quarters, "Will our margins ever get best in class?" and at least one of our businesses is now getting there. Let me also highlight that even though the group margin is at 28% and the consumer group is 35%, almost, in fact, all our businesses, the margins are more than or excessive of 20% now. If you look at slide eight, the remarketing business, which has had a few sluggish quarters, has come back to the growth trajectory. Again, here you can see the levers of the business working.
We have 28% growth at INR 63.64 crores of revenue in the quarter, lead to 73% growth in EBITDA and 178% growth in profits. So we believe that something we've been talking through in the last few quarters, the repossession business has slightly improved and is reflecting in the accounts for the quarter. If you look at slide nine, which is OLX, as I've said earlier, OLX in every consecutive quarter has grown from the time we've acquired the company. Margins have grown, revenues have grown, and profits have grown every consecutive quarter. Revenues have grown 16% at INR 52 crores, INR 51.97 crores. EBITDA is up 24%, and PAT is up to INR 14.68 crores versus the loss of last year. But here, again, the margins are up to 26% from 24% last year and 18% last quarter.
The rest of the presentation covers segmental results, our Google Trend numbers, and some of our organic traffic and listing auction listing numbers. So I want to stop here, and I'm happy to take some of the questions and answers from you. Let me again once highlight that it's been a strong quarter performance built on a strong fundamental business. We feel pretty good about the situation of the industry and the business itself. And yeah, I'm happy to take any question that you might have for me. Thank you.
Thank you, sir. We will now begin with the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the 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. The first question is from the line of Vijit Jain from Citi. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Thank you. Hi, Vinay. Hi, Aneesha. Congratulations on comprehensively spectacular results here. So my first question on the consumer group business, if you can comment on the growth rate that you're now seeing in the business. I mean, this is a pretty decent acceleration, pretty sharp acceleration versus what you've seen in the last many, many quarters. So is this what we should expect in the near term ahead as well? And broadly, if you can talk about whether you think you've taken wallet share from competition across OEM at budget wallet share and across major dealers at budget wallet share. That's my first question.
Sure. Yeah, I think the one thing is that the industry has seen a very minor growth in the first nine months. As we've discussed many times, supply is higher than demand. And that makes it a little more favorable market condition for consumer group businesses where OEMs and dealers depend a lot more on our platforms for sale of vehicles. So these are reasonably favorable market conditions at this point. And we've also seen a small growth in the industry, but supply is more than demand. So we've always highlighted that these are the, and this is normally the situation in most markets where supply is more than demand, and there is some growth in the industry. So we expect that to continue in the next few quarters. I don't think we are seeing any real change in market conditions at all at this point.
I think the industry growth rates are probably what they're going to be at this point. I think supply will exceed demand for the next few. So I think from an industry standpoint, we don't see much change. Clearly, CarWale, BikeWale have grown in terms of traffic, in terms of user experience, in terms of their deliverance to car manufacturers and dealers consistently, right? And if you see the traffic growth, it's also pretty significant. And therefore, we feel good about the business. Whether we've taken wallet share is too early to tell. My sense is that if you see the advertising numbers, generally, we would have taken some share, but generally, the spends have also gone up, which is also affecting or helping our business, right? It's a combination of wallet share as well as spends having gone up as well.
But our traffic growth numbers are pretty sharp, if you see, as well.
Right. Yeah. Thanks, Vinay. And on the remarketing business, I can see that there's a pretty solid, again, 30% odd growth in auctions listing volume. So most of the growth seems to have come from this side. I know in the opening remarks, you mentioned repossession business has slightly improved, but this looks a little bit more broad-based than that. Or is that base effect in play here? Again, just looking at broader ecosystem, are you seeing repossession coming back just to normal, or is there more to it?
Yeah, we see repossession having definitely grown in the quarter, and it is a driver for us because about almost half our volume comes from repossession. It's about half now. It was about 42% at lowest. It’s back to 50%. So it's clearly growing. It also seems likely these are not one-quarter phenomenon, so it seems likely that it could be a trend for a while. But it's hard for us to predict beyond that. But generally, it seems that these volumes from here should sustain itself or grow from here. It seems like that.
Got it.
It is a factor which is driving part of the growth.
Got it. My last question on the OLX business. So OLX business, since you've acquired, your focus has been on integration and reducing some of the costs, and those things were achieved earlier. I think this is the first quarter where we're seeing a meaningful jump in the absolute revenues also collected. So if you can throw some color on where growth is coming from more recently. And if I look at the number on a YOY basis, you're maybe at around maybe somewhere around 15% YOY versus the first full quarter after your acquisition. Do you see enough to believe that the growth should stay here or improve from here? Any colors on that would be helpful.
Yeah. You're right. I mean, the first year, we spent a lot of time on stability of the platform, technology transition, stability of the team, putting our product teams together, technology teams together. A lot of those things were brought to the first year, I would say. A lot of the initiatives we've been running in the last six months on sales, product marketing, traffic, etc., are things we've had very little time to work on. Some of these things are in a small, small way starting to play out. In most, we think they've played out. So it's still, to me, a lot of whatever the growth coming is coming from a lot of the early initiatives. There are a lot of long-term fundamental initiatives being taken, and we're hopeful that in the coming quarters, we'd ideally like this to grow a lot faster.
So that's revenue metrics, profit metrics, all of it. The margins have got better. We have a better handle on margins, but we would like the revenues to grow stronger in the coming quarters and years, for sure. We believe there's tremendous opportunity both on the used auto side at OLX and the used non-auto side at OLX. Both are almost going at the same rate. This is another question you had, almost at the same rate. But it's important to know that the potential of both is equally large. And I mean, we're just very early stages of that, of really catering to that potential which exists. It's very early days still.
Got it. Vinay, I have just one last question, and I'll jump back into the queue. Is there a collaboration or a partnership that you have with the likes of Cars24 or Spinny in the works? I think I saw something.
We continuously work with them. I think over a period of time, I mean, a lot of people confuse what our relationship with them is. Cars24 and Spinny are full-stack companies which buy vehicles, refurbish them, and sell them to consumers. But they tend to be full-stack. We tend to be very much a marketplace. We are completely a marketplace. In both CarWale and OLX, we tend to work with them pretty closely because they're companies which list vehicles on our platform, CarWale as well as OLX. So we tend to work very closely with them, and they actually complement our marketplace model and add value to our users as well. So yeah, we tend to work very closely with them, actually.
Okay. Got it. Thanks, Vinay. Those are all my questions. And again, congratulations.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Sachin Dixit from JM Financial. Please go ahead.
Hi, Vinay. Hi, Aneesha. Congrats on a great set of results.
Thanks.
I had a couple of questions. The first one with regards to growth rate, right? So if I look at the growth rates in consumer business, they have spiked up very sharply. Obviously, some of it was driven by the fact that OEMs were not spending a lot earlier, and those spends have started to come back now. But do you see this 38-odd% growth rate likely to sustain? I mean, I'm sure next few years, not. But even in the next quarter, do you believe such a growth rate can sustain?
We don't give guidance, Sachin, around revenue growth rate, but we do feel that market conditions are reasonable, and although October to December tends to be a little high, but a bit of a high in terms of a quarter for the consumer group always. I mean, generally, we just feel comfortable the way the market is right now and CarWale or BikeWale's positioning is. So we don't feel. I don't want to comment on the growth rate, but we feel comfortable with the business.
Understood. Understood. And coming to OLX, right, obviously, a lot of things are still in the works. At the time of IPO, when we discussed, there was some understanding that the business is likely a 20% odd growth business, which is where it has grown in the past. I think that growth rate should revert at some point. But what is happening on the cost side there? We noticed that there's a sharp drop in employee expense in this quarter. Is it just because of one single senior person leaving, or are there more to it?
Yeah, there is some cost realization because of that, absolutely, on the employee side. But it takes us time because after the M&A, it takes us time to balance tech costs, employee costs, organization charts. So we understand everything. And I think now we've reached a very stable, we think a stable margin basis, right, where we can think the margins will only improve with revenues. And that's across. It's not just in OLX. It's also, we've seen Shriram Automall as well as CarWale, where the nature of our company is almost that we want to grow, but we want to keep our unit economics growing with it, right? And we want leverage in our business. And I think OLX is no different where with increase in revenue, we have very marginal increase in costs.
It's typically demonstrated in the consumer group, and you can see it now play out over the last few quarters. You can see it in Shriram in a quarter which has grown, and OLX is no different where we want to see margins growing. I think the way we're trying to structure the company, OLX or any of the others, is that revenue should grow as we increase our value to our consumers or dealers or all listers in OLX's case, but not necessarily that we have to increase costs in relation to that. A large part of revenue for OLX is an online collection method. It's paid online. So it doesn't mean that manpower or other costs go up with revenues. I think that's the methodology we've used for all our businesses. That's the architecture of how we build products in these companies.
So it's playing out now, as you can see, the first sign in the last quarter for OLX or the other businesses. But that's the nature that we worked on for the last three years or four years or five years to get this basic DNA of the leverage of revenue growth, not increasing costs and not increasing costs.
Completely fair enough. Just one final question on the remarketing side. Basically, we do not notice that there was any sharp jump in NPA for some of the vehicle finances. So the growth rate that we got, even on sequential basis, is it a function of our investments into retail, or repossessions have finally bottomed out for good?
No, no. I definitely think the growth is coming from repossession. Of course, our numbers compared to the industry are much smaller. So even though the industry may not be showing it, repossession has definitely been a factor in the growth of Shriram Automall. Other segments have grown too, but repossession has definitely grown as well. I'm not sure. I'm not analyzing the numbers of various banks and NBFC systems or NPA going up or not, but definitely here, we find that repossession is contributing.
Sounds good. Thanks so much, and I'll let you know.
Thank you. Thanks.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Siddhartha Bera from Nomura. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, sir. Thanks for the opportunity, and congrats on the set of numbers again.
Thank you.
Sir, first on the consumer business, if you just can share the mix for the quarter between old and new and used and?
Aneesha, you want to take that up quickly? Just share the various metrics of consumer group.
Sure. It's pretty similar to what we've declared in the past. The used versus new continues to be that 85%-15% or 86%-14%. The dealer OEM also mixes pretty similar at this 53.5%. Any other issue that you would like to know?
Okay. So the growth basically is coming across both OEM and dealers. There is no specific segment which is growing faster than others. Is that the right term shift?
No, yeah, it's similar. Actually, the OEMs itself has grown sharply. As earlier, the dealers' force is stronger, but the OEMs have started to grow. And I think there's a factor in the last about maybe 18, 20. If you've seen the last two and a half years almost, I mean, two years, nine months, for the consumer group, it's continuously growing. It's not just been last quarter. If you take the previous year's financial in the year before that, the consumer group has grown continuously, actually. So it's still, as I said, I still feel we're at this phase of an early stage of digital advertising, and we're seeing the growth of the. It's been two years, nine months, actually. It continues to be growing, the consumer group. It's not a one-quarter thing. There's a sharp increase in this quarter.
You see the margins, etc., because of the leverage in the business, but the growth, if you see this business, it's actually been continuously growing.
Got it. And how has been the performance in the abSure business? How are we looking at ramping up there?
Yeah, it's got stronger. We've got two sides of it now. We've got an abSure/signature outlets for CarWale, which is, I think, 180-odd stores now. And we acquired OLX. We got another, I think, we have 170, 180 stores there as well. So there are, if I'm not right, Aneesha, about 375-400 such used car franchise stores now in the group. So it's become a very strong business model for both OLX and CarWale. I mean, again, very early days, as I said, but it's become a reasonably strong business model for both.
Got it. And if I look at, again, the consumer overall growth, will it be fair to say that, I mean, digital advertisement overall industry would have grown in that space, or we would have gained probably some market share from some of the other digital segments like Facebook, Google, and all? So any sense you have there?
It would be both, I would think. I'll tell you what happens is when manufacturers are having a little more stream of selling vehicles, they tend to choose a little more direct form of advertising, which is us, which is we're very performance-driven in a way. So if you spend money on CarWale or you list a car on CarWale, it is almost you're directly getting to the most, I would say, serious customer or the most relevant customer. If you put money on Star Sports or Star TV or, I don't know, Times of India or whatever, some newspaper, it's a little more brand kind of advertising. So when sales are strained, you tend to go to the more direct source for sales. I think that is one factor.
The other factor you have to see, if you look at the traffic itself, I think we've gone from if you look at Q3 last year, we were 38 million. In the consumer group, we've gone to 49 million. So on a 38 million per month, we have gone to 49 million a month, which is a tremendous increase in consumer traffic itself, as you see. So I think these are multiple factors we look at in the growth of CarWale.
Got it. So lastly, in slightly longer term now, if you look at the annual numbers in the consumer business, we probably are closer to that 30%-31% EBITDA margins, and OLX, we are at close to 26%-27%. So do you think over the longer term, the margin potential for both of these businesses will be similar, or any particular business where the potential of increase will be much higher compared to others? Any thoughts there?
No, no. We feel like these are typical businesses where the margins only go up with increasing revenue. We don't see any major cost escalation, and we don't see, so therefore, we see what we've said always, that with revenue increasing, margins will continue to grow, so these are early days for these companies or these businesses. As we grow in the next one, two, three, four years, margins will continuously grow, and we'll get even better with our margins at this time now. I think the consumer group is 35% today, so in last quarter, and it'll get even better as revenue grows.
Got it, sir. Thanks a lot. I'll come back and let you know.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Aman Saifee from iWealth Management. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. I hope I'm audible.
Yes, we can hear you.
Thank you so much, sir. For the opportunity, and congrats on your first set of numbers. What I noticed is that in your consumer business, what you have delivered is a high growth of 38%.
Okay. I think we can't hear very clearly. I think it's smudging a bit.
Hello. Hello.
Hello. Yeah.
Yeah, sir. So what I was noticing is that in the passenger vehicle industry, the inventory levels were at the highest in October at 80-85 days. Then it went down to 65 days and further down in December. So, sir, is it right to assume that your high growth, which has been came in this quarter, is due to high industry, high inventory level in this quarter?
Yeah, I want to add to the high industry level, inventory level. One is that October and November tends to be, I think October and November tend to be high-selling months anyway. So it does help us. But otherwise, also, I think that the inventory is three months or one month or six months. Generally, wherever there's a supply availability, I think we get better. So the inventory may not be high, but if there's supply available and dealers and manufacturers want to sell more vehicles, it's generally the more favorable market condition for us.
I'll just put here. So, basically, as this inventory level is getting rationalized in the industry, so the contribution which has come from that particular new OEM share in your consumer business will get down eventually, right?
No, I don't look at it that way. I feel like consumers come to buy vehicles on CarWale. The inventory is one factor, but the reason consumers come is because they want to buy. So it's many, many factors, I would say. The fact that the industry is growing, the fact that the markets are growing, the automotive markets are growing, the fact that inventory.
Hello, sir. You're not audible. Can you hear me? Mr. Sanghi, can you hear me? Hello?
Hello?
Yes, Mr. Sanghi. Yeah, you weren't audible. Please go ahead.
Oh, sorry. Can you hear me now?
Yes.
Yes, sir. We can hear you. You've lost in between when you were explaining about the spend.
Yeah, I don't think the inventory. I don't think the spend or the business has been related to one or 10 manufacturers having excessive inventory. That's the question. I think it's related to the fact that people find they want to come to a platform like us. People find that you get the inventory they want here. They get the selection they want here. People also find that they want to buy cars in that month or two-wheelers in that month. So it's a multiple-factor thing. It's not about high inventory. So that's the question.
I understood. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Nishit Jalan from Axis Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi, Vinay. Thank you for taking the question. And congrats on a good set of numbers. So see, I have three questions. First question on the consumer business. Yes, I think you said rightly that when supply is higher than level here, it's very good for your business. So just wanted to understand when this is a scenario, growth is coming more in terms of your lead cost per vehicle you are charging higher to the dealers, your advertisement rates have gone up, or is it simply that more and more vehicles are getting sold through lead generation? So just wanted to understand the drivers of the growth here. How much is because of product growth?
It's actually all the above. One is the manufacturers spend more money. Second is, as I gave the figures a little earlier, the traffic itself is up substantially year on year in CarWale and BikeWale. I think the third is platform selling obviously more vehicles. So all of it, I would say. It's not one of these things. It's all of them.
Okay. So there's no one factor which is impacting more?
I think that thing, Nitesh, that's one of the reasons we feel good about the business is because we don't think that there's a reason why a very specific reason where we've seen this growth. As I said earlier, the consumer group business has grown over many, many quarters. It's not a one-off. And I think that's why we feel good about the business because it's not a one-off. It's just been consistent growth over many quarters, actually.
Correct. Correct. Correct. So that's why I think the only factor here is the growth has picked up substantially. Yes, this business was growing earlier, but it was growing more in mid-teens earlier. But in the last couple of quarters, we have seen growth picking up substantially. So the idea is to understand what is the more sustainable growth, basically. That's what we have to understand. And obviously, there'll not be data available for this, but as per your experience or as per your understanding, right? See, what we understand, we know the advertisement budgets of the OEM, or at least they tell us how it has grown, not grown, right? And it has not grown at 30% or 20% the way your top line has grown.
So does that mean that these verticals, basically CarWale, CarTrade, all these domains are getting more and more traffic now or more and more share of OEM's wallet? Or any sense around these numbers or anything you can talk about as to any other structural changes that are happening? Or these changes were supposed to happen anyways, but now I think it looks like we are starting to see that pickup happening. So any sense on what is driving this or exactly what is the wallet share now, where it can go in the next three years, five years?
Yeah, it is correct that one is OEM has gone more money. That's one. You may be right that OEM has not spent 30% more money. That is also correct, probably. But the reality is they are spending more money on digital. I think that change does take place when you want more direct results or very quick results. You spend money on digital, more measurable results. All these require digital spend. So it would be, I mean, we don't have complete data yet for the last three, four months, but it would be correct to assume that some share would have been gained by platforms like CarWale or BikeWale. It would be fair to assume. But it's also fair to assume that there is a slight shift in the pattern of OEM spending to digital. There's also part of it is that advertising spend for OEMs are growing.
It's all those factors. The fact that share is growing is also true. I would again put in all the three factors that are actually taking place. We are seeing the first signs of all of this happening, actually.
Okay. That's a good thing to hear. Vinay, you were taking a lot of other initiatives also in the consumer business, lending through your portal, making a lending platform through your portal, and maybe some other things as well. Has any of these things started working out well or started leading to some revenue generation for you guys?
It's not leading to significant revenue generation, but it's leading to traction. I think the first signs of something working is how consumers react to products like financing, for example. As you can see on our platform today, finance offers for new cars, new two-wheelers, used cars, etc., etc., CarWale, BikeWale. Even on OLX, this has gone live, and we find that some of these are starting to be adopted by consumers. Getting instant approval for a two-wheeler or a car. Some have scaled, especially in two-wheelers. We find the volume is pretty high, so these are all products for the future. Eventually, people like you and me, when we buy a car or a two-wheeler, definitely a two-wheeler, if not a car, will want a one-click-like experience. Click a button and get the bike home, right? It'll just come to your house. You'll want that kind of an experience.
And obviously, a lot of these initiatives on our tech product side are trying to solve these problems for the future. Even if today consumers don't want it, maybe in a year, two, three, four years, they will want it, or some percentage of customers will want it. And that's what we're doing. We're building these products for ourselves, for bikes and cars. We're also building these, by the way, for OEMs. Many of the OEMs are using these products on their websites. I mean, today, many two-wheeler and car manufacturers are using some of the technologies we created for their own customers on their own websites and their own showrooms. So I think part of our role is also trying to get the entire industry digitized. And then it just helps serve all our customers better and give them a better experience.
So many of those initiatives are going on in parallel. They may not become big monetization tools immediately in the next maybe three, four months or six months, but they're definitely ways of changing consumer behavior. And they also improve consumer experience. And that's one of the reasons you see CarWale and BikeWale's traffic, right, going up on a base of 38, 39 million a month last year. To go up from there to 49 million, it's an all-time achievement. I mean, it's a tremendous achievement to increase traffic by that scale over a 12-month period. It is these kind of initiatives which get more consumers to come. And you've got to remember, we are 95% organic.
Yeah. Yeah. No, I understand that. Okay. Maybe I'll get into a separate discussion with you to discuss this in detail. Just one thing about which I have always been curious, right? Typically, if you look at in India, new car market is around 4.2 million. Maybe used car market is around 5 million, right? So there are about 8-10 million car buyers and sales that happens, new car, used car combined together. So when we see the traffic numbers coming out to be 38 million, 50 million, who are these people, right? If they're not sharing the—
There are also two-wheelers here. But when you look at two-wheelers, the numbers go a little lower. But even if you look at cars alone, if there are 10 million, if there are 10 million probably buyers for cars, there are probably 80-100 million looking for cars or shopping for cars, which maybe come in the next 12 months, 16 months, whatever. And then there are another 4-5 million selling cars, right? So the multiple sections of this data, right, which come around. And then there are almost like 4-5 million, maybe many users of cars who just come and understand about their own car or want to know more about their car. So traffic has got all sorts of people.
People who want cars, people who are looking to buy new cars, used cars, people who are going to sell cars, all of that, right? Anybody who's trying to do this for the next six months or 12 months will be there. And you've got to remember also market share of CarWale is very high to car users, right? Car owners or aspiring car owners. It's very, very high, the market share.
Sure. Sure.
Very few people buying a car and not coming to one of our platforms. Very few people.
Correct. Correct. And the second question is on the used car side. I think when we bought OLX, we had an existing used car business as well. So have you integrated those businesses? Have you been able to offer a better deal to dealers, used car dealers, and charge a higher subscription revenues from them? So anything, any of these steps you have taken on the OLX side because it's like essentially number one and number two player getting merged together, right, or becoming one. So what kind of benefits have you seen because of that, or any strategic steps you have taken to improve your positioning or to expand the size of the industry, basically, right? Basically, you are the one who has to create opportunities for monetization. So what have you done to do that?
We've got two used car businesses under CarWale and under OLX. OLX is almost three and a half, four times the size of CarWale in the used car space. For CarWale, 85% is new, 15% is used. For OLX, about 40-45% of its business is used cars. And it is three times the size of CarWale. The customer profile, both platforms, by the way, get over 150 million customers a year. So both are strong. Both have independent brands. Customers go for different reasons to both. What we found, I mean, what we find in the data is generally we find that customers want to buy a car, let's say, 7-8 lakhs and over, tend to come to CarWale, a little more, I would say, big city, a little more probably buying a little more expensive car.
In OLX, you find very strong coverage across all cities in India, especially B-class, C-class, D-class towns in India. And the ticket sizes seem to be more 0-8 lakhs. So it's almost like CarWale has very strong strength because it's such a new car platform on cars above 8 lakhs for used cars, and OLX is strong up to 8 lakhs. It's almost how they complement each other. Of course, there's overlap between the two as well. We find that dealers and consumers come for different reasons to both. As I said, OLX is three and a half times the size. We find that dealers in OLX tend to advertise for cars or want to be there for all small towns, very, very strong coverage in small towns, and very, very strong coverage on cars up to 8 lakhs of rupees.
CarWale tends to be in the top 25 cities and up to 8 lakhs. That's how it is. The question of merging, we thought originally whether we want one business rather than two. We find that people come for different reasons. The brands are strong. Dealers have different reasons to come. Consumers come for different reasons. What we tend to merge always or tend to make it easy for people to do is the backend. If there's a dealer on OLX and CarWale, can we give them one simple tool to upload cars on both platforms, right? Can we do things like that? That's the work we've been working on on the technology side, where the backend is one, but the frontend for consumers and dealers are two, right?
So you as a consumer can go to either platform, or you as a dealer can go to either platform. And I think that's how we tend to be running these businesses. We're still in the process of completing that. I think the first steps of that in this quarter where we'll have some functions of our backend systems coming, right? So I think those are the kind of things we have a roadmap towards on the tech side and synergy side at this point.
Sure. Sure. And just one last question on the housekeeping question. If I look at Q3 this quarter's PPT, last year auction volumes in remarketing is a share low on 300,000 units, and auction volume is around 35,000 something. But if I look at the last year's PPT, right, these numbers were much higher. Auction listing was 355,000, and auction volume was 51,000. So has there been any restatement in the last year numbers on the auction volumes and auction sales because—
In SAMIL.
Yeah, in SAMIL. Because the numbers.
I don't need any restatement of anything. Aneesha, anything? But I don't need any restatement of anything.
No, no, no. If you take a look at the portfolio class, these are all vehicle auction listings.
No, no, no. I understand that. Because, Aneesha, if you look at auction listing in current year PPT for last year, you have given 299,712. But in the Q3 FY24 PPT, for Q3 FY24, the auction listing is 355,363. And similarly, the auction volume was 50,925, but in this year's PPT, last year number is 45,000 something. So there's a big difference.
Yes. Which one I was clarifying, Aneesha? These are all vehicle auction listings. Previously, we had put all listings, which is why in the last couple of quarters, we have clearly called out only the vehicle auction listings.
Oh, okay. So you have removed some non-vehicle things from that, and that is the reason it is happening.
Yes. Yes.
Okay. Sure. Thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Arpit Shah from Stallion Asset. Please go ahead.
Hi.
Hi, Arpit.
Yeah. Hi. Just super results, super show. Just wanted to understand in terms of monetization, given the strong platform that we have, beat on the used cars, also on the new cars, our monetization is a little underleveraged, right? So you believe that we are at a J-curve in terms of monetization, and the revenue growth should be accelerating going ahead, given our position in used car and new cars? What is the, how do you think about it?
We believe we've had a 32% growth in revenues, right? So we believe the growth drivers are in place. 32% growth over nine months. So we believe definitely the revenue drivers are in place. We also believe that there's a lot of potential in the industry itself, and most of that is around having more consumers coming to our platforms or having more dealers or more manufacturers on our platform, providing more services to our customers, like loans, etc., etc. So yeah, of course, we believe we're at early stage. The TAM is massive. The idea would be to keep growing consumer experience as well as keep doing monetization with it, and that is why we're growing at 32%, right? So it's all of these things I'll give you, to be honest, Arpit.
Got it. So you think these numbers, once all the steps that you have taken in the last couple of years and a couple of quarters, this whole initiative now will translate for you from going from a 20% growth company to being a 30% growth company. Is that a thing that you are looking at?
I don't know. We don't think that we're not giving guidance. We don't think about that. But to be honest, we've got to, if you see our growth rate in the first nine months, right, which is what should we look for, it's a 32% growth in the company, right, on a consolidated basis. Of course, the consumer group may be at 27% and different growth rates. But at the company, we've grown at 32%. So our intent is to obviously serve our consumers better, grow as fast as we can, but growth based on profitable growth, right, which is keep improving our margins as we grow. That's how we tend to be as an organization. And that's how the last few quarters have demonstrated our thought process around some of these things.
Got it. Got it. So let's say now you are at INR 176 crores kind of a revenue run, INR 180 crores kind of a revenue run rate for the third quarter. You think this run rate, let's say, will move to INR 220-INR 230 crores maybe by next year. And that's how we go on to become a INR 1,000-crore revenue company where your costs would not escalate, but your margins will just keep accelerating, keep going ahead. How should you look at these costs going ahead once the revenue growth keeps coming at, let's say, 25%-30%?
I can't obviously give guidance on OLX's revenue, but what you're saying is correct, is that if our revenue is to grow, our costs should not increase in relation to that. We always say that our costs grow marginally in comparison to our revenue growth. If we did add some quantum of revenue to our current revenue, 95% will go to profit, and it has been demonstrated now over five, six quarters. This is not a one quarter. It's been continuously happening, so you can see the margins quarter by quarter for the last four quarters, and you'll see that's true.
Got it. Just one last question on OLX. So on OLX, what steps are we taking to fire up the non-auto side of the business? What are the things that we have been doing on the backend, and when should we start seeing great results on the non-auto side of the business?
Yeah, so on the non-auto side, there are different segments as real estate to mobile phones, to bikes, to electronics, household items, jobs, etc., etc. In each of these, we're working a lot on the product side to see what the offering for the consumer is. What changes we need to make on the front-end platform? How do we get the backend tech? How do we get more consumers to pay? How do we get more businesses to pay? How do we enhance experience for them? How do we launch products for them which enhance the experience? All of that is going on. Actually, we've been working on it for the last year. It takes a little bit of time to make such product changes. And some of it is coming in. Some of it is still happening. But we do hope we're very excited with the non-auto side.
Tremendous potential. It's probably the largest platform for bikes, mobile phones, electronics, household items. All of these, OLX probably has very, very strong dominance in India. If you're selling an old phone or an old washing machine, if you didn't put it on OLX, how would you sell it? And I think that's the strength of the platform. It has very, very high dominance. There's probably no other way in India to sell it outside OLX. Either on a C2C basis or sell it to a dealer or if you wanted to buy one similarly, how would you buy it? How would you find a used washing machine except if it was on OLX? There's tremendous potential here. But it's early days for us, as I said. It should provide growth for the next 10 years. It's not a one-quarter, two-quarter story.
This is probably a 10-year story or a 20-year story.
Got it. Got it. But do you think our expenses now will grow in line with inflation, or there will be still some growth on that? Because I think it's been.
Yeah. It may not be inflation, but we see minimal incremental costs. If you see our costs even this year, the cost increase in our standalone accounts is almost zero. So we don't see much reason across the group for cost increase. I mean, there will be increments. There'll be some additions on manpower. First of all, the only real massive cost we have is manpower cost. So there'll be an increment factor, and there will be probably some addition of some people. But generally, our costs are not likely to go up significantly in the future.
Got it. Got it. And on an OLX business, do you think that this business from a INR 50 crore run, it can move to, let's say, INR 100-INR 150 crore runs maybe in the next couple of years? That is a big optionality. The group owns the right hand, and that needs to be leveraged going ahead.
I don't want to put a number, but there's limitless potential in OLX. There's absolutely limitless potential. As I said, I don't want to put a number to it, but we've just barely started working on it. So I've not said two, three years. I think for 10 years, we're going to have growth.
Sure. Sure. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Harshit Nagpal from Yes Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good afternoon, sir. Can you hear me?
Hi, Harshit.
Hi. So if you could provide the breakdown for the remarketing business for this quarter's revenues between Shriram, Adroit, and BlueJack ?
Aneesha, you want to do that? Keep this up? I think it must be the different companies.
Yeah. There are three different legal entities. Just give me a second.
Yeah. Do we file that?
No, that's what I was just saying. We're not publishing this to the public domain yet.
I understand.
Right. Okay. And if you could give me the user breakup for the rural, urban, and semi-urban for both CarWale and OLX, if that is possible, like the amount of users we have.
We won't have those numbers. The user numbers we said, the traffic numbers, right?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
No, we won't have that. We try and keep it, but we don't have it today available with us.
Okay, and the advertisement revenues from the OEMs and the dealers, the split between that, if you would have it for the CarWale?
Yeah. That's it. That we see, Aneesha said, but 65-35. I think 65 OEMs and 35 dealers in CarWale and BikeWale.
So 65 OEMs, it's mostly advertisement revenue, right?
It tends to be mostly either advertisement or leads. It's not advertising. The way we call advertising is not just display advertising, but it's also leads, or it could even be we are deeply integrated with manufacturers now. So it could even be transaction in some cases.
Right. Thank you. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Siddharth Purohit from Invesco Investment Advisors Private Limited. Please go ahead.
Hello. Yeah. Hi, sir. Most of my question has been answered. Just two clarifications. Sir, what would be our run rate of ESOP at the consolidated level? Or if you can give it.
ESOP, is it broken up, Aneesha? You can just give it. It's in a standalone. It is down by 37% to INR 2.79 crores a quarter. Is that correct, Aneesha?
Yes, sir.
That's correct.
So it will not be equally debated between the two entities, right?
No, no. It's in the respective decks. Each of the entities is displayed separately. So the standalone reflects the consumer group. That's why when I called up the INR 2.79 crores.
That is a quarterly run rate, you are saying?
Yes.
That's a quarterly, and it's INR 8.36 crores for three months.
For nine months.
For nine months, sorry, which is down 37% from last year.
So any specific, I mean, reason why it was lower this quarter? Maybe it was not the.
It's the way it is. A lot of the ESOP's cost is related to stock issued earlier two, three years ago, and as the company invests, the costs keep coming down. So it's likely to keep coming down if the question is it's likely to keep coming down even next year.
Okay. Fine. And one more thing. On this auction side, if I say look at the realizations per auction, is it seasonally higher during this quarter, or is it because of the product mix or the sales mix?
Yeah. It is a little bit. Normally, Q3 is better than Q2 anyway. But it is also because of the repossession volume. Because it's much higher than last year as well at the same time. So the right way to look at it is 28% year on year, right? Same period last year. So it can't be seasonal. It is also because of volume increase due to a little bit more repossession in the quarter.
Okay. Got it. Okay, sir. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Aastha from Pkeday Advisors . Please go ahead.
Hello. Hi, sir. I have a few questions. My first question is to start with, so you said that whenever our revenue increases, and so that is directly going to impact. That's directly going to hit our bottom line, right? So that is across all the three segments, right? OLX, consumer, and remarketing?
That is correct. Absolutely.
Okay. My actual question, second question would be, sir, what would be the steady-state EBITDA margins you expect for the consumer business? The current margins, can we consider that as a stable one?
We actually think that as revenue increases, it should go up. So I don't know what steady means, but we actually think it should go up as revenue goes up. If revenue did come down, it will come down too. But if revenue went up, it will go up.
Okay. So, sir, currently, we were at approximately 30, right? EBITDA margins for consumers.
35. Yeah.
Yeah. 35. So if the revenue goes up, so we are expecting those margins to go up.
It should go up. Yes. The margins should go up. We feel the other way around, actually.
Got it. Sir, my third question is related to the remarketing segment. Sir, what happened in this quarter exactly? Is it growth mainly because last year's quarter was so soft or something fundamentally has changed in the industry level?
I think it's both. We did have a weak previous year where the growth was minimal in the remarketing business. So there was a base effect there. But there is, as I said, some signs of repossession improving or increasing and us getting more vehicles from that segment. So it's both, I would think. But we did have a previous year which was also weak. So it's a combination of both factors, I would say.
Got it, so my last question would be, what is the right to win in this marketing, remarketing segment, and who are we competing with exactly?
So the second part is who we compete. We are generally competing with a very offline methodology of sales. So if a bank or an NBFC or an individual didn't sell vehicles in an auction format, digital auction format, they would sell it offline directly. And that's probably the competition for us, is offline sales. What is the right to win is a very good question. It's a marketplace. So there are thousands and thousands of dealers which bid for inventory coming from consumers or businesses. 40% of our business or the supply which comes is single inventory, which is what we call retail, which means each individual vehicle comes there and is sold to thousands of dealers bidding for it.
It's an online digital marketplace, which is by itself a right to win because you have dealers coming because there are sellers or consumers or businesses selling, and sellers come because there are businesses buying. It's a C2B, B2B business. That's one. There's a network effect there which feeds off each other. And as I said, these dealers are thousands of them. There's no single buyer would buy more than 0.5% on our platform. It's a very, very large number of buyers which buy this inventory. We are probably the largest supplier of inventory to dealers in India, number one. Number two, there's a tremendous amount of physical infrastructure at Shriram Automall. That's one of the reasons we acquired the company.
We have 130 physical locations or auto malls, as we call them, each of them in a minimum of five-acre properties where we keep vehicles which are for sale. So if you're a bank or an NBFC and you want to sell your vehicles, you can physically keep it with us, and then we can do a digital sale for you. So I think it's a combination. That also is a differentiation in India. So it's a phygital business, mostly digital, but all these factors of network effects, marketplace dynamics, physical infrastructure, skill and technology, and product are factors why we have a right to win.
Got it. Got it, sir. That's it from my end. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Vijit Jain from Citi. Please go ahead.
Great. Thank you so much for the opportunity again. So earlier in this call, you described your business to OEMs as performance.
I think we lost Vijit. Hello.
Yes, I think we have lost Vijit.
Vijit.
Ladies and gentlemen, that brings us to the last question for today. I would now like to hand the conference over to the management for the closing comments.
Thank you, everyone, for joining in today and taking this time out. We feel excited about the last quarter, and we also feel excited about the future of the company. So thank you once again, and look forward to hearing from you again soon. Thank you. Goodbye.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of CarTrade Tech Limited, that concludes this conference. You may now disconnect your lines.