Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the CarTrade Tech Limited Q4 and FY 2026 earnings conference call organized by MUFG Intime India Private Limited. 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 a touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Aryan Sumra from MUFG Intime India Private Limited. Thank you and over to you, sir.
Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. I welcome you all to the Q4 and FY 2026 earnings conference call for CarTrade Tech Limited. To discuss this quarter's financial performance, we have from the management, Mr. Vinay Sanghi, Chairman and Managing Director, Ms. Aneesha Bhandary, Executive Director and CFO, and Mr. Varun Sanghi, Chief Strategy Officer. Before we proceed with the call, I would like to mention that some of the statement made in today's call may be forward-looking and may involve risks and uncertainties. For more details, kindly refer to the investor presentation and other filings that can be found on the company's website. Without further ado, I would like to hand over the call to the management for their opening remarks, and then we can open the floor for Q and A. Thank you and over to you, sir.
Thank you, and welcome to everybody to the Q4 FY 2026 earnings call. Thank you for taking the time out today. I just want to start off by saying we've completed a year which has been a very strong year for the company. Its growth in revenues, its growth in profits, and it's obviously its growth in margins. If you look at the investor presentation shared with all of you, if you go to slide three, which is, you know, really looking at the last three-year story of the company. At the center of a company is really innovation, and that drives our growth and profits. If you look at the three-year growth story, and if you look at the compounding of the company from a revenue standpoint, the three-year CAGR is 29% of revenue.
EBITDA is at 98% three year CAGR, and the PAT CAGR is 82%. As you all have seen over the last many quarters, margins have continuously gone up. Margins have now gone from 9% to 33%. If you look at, you know, the strength of the company in terms of the capital strength, we've now got INR 1,244 crore of cash reserves. Last year we added a cash balance of approximately INR 300 crore, based on, you know, profitable growth. As you can see, the return on equity is getting better and better. If you look at, you know, the real growth on various other metrics, EPS is up 86% CAGR over the last three years. The earnings per share now is actually INR 47 a share.
If you also look at the profit after tax has jumped to INR 244 crore. It's among India's most profitable listed digital platforms. If you go to the next slide and look at the consolidated accounts, which is slide four, as you can see here, revenue growth is up 22% for the year, 20% operating growth for the quarter. EBITDA growth is 70% for the year. Margins are in 33% for the year. For the quarter, margins are 35% and EBITDA is up 55%. If you look at profit after tax is up 54% and first time crossed INR 70 crore at INR 70.84 crore in a quarter, so 54% up PAT.
PAT for the year has jumped from INR 145 crores to INR 243 crores, which is up by 68% for the year. It's been a very, very strong yearly performance. We obviously feel very optimistic about not only the year gone by, but we also feel very, very optimistic about the years, you know, going ahead. We feel our competitive dynamics have improved for the company. Overall customer engagement has improved. As you can see here, revenues have improved and margins have improved, and obviously profitability has dramatically gone up as well. We feel very strong and in a good position to really guide the future of this company.
If you go to slide five, which is the consumer group, as you know, BikeWale, CarWale, these brands, it has a really, really strong year at a growth of 30%. Not only has it grown revenue at 30% for the year, it's grown EBITDA by 96% and profit after tax at 55% due to the increase in the deferred tax provisions of the company. If you look at the quarter revenue is up 25%, EBITDA is up 72%, and pre-profit after tax is up 64%. It's been a really strong quarter for the consumer group as well.
If you look at the remarketing business, I want to highlight here that in the year this year gone by, every company of ours, all the three businesses, have achieved the highest ever revenue, the highest ever margins, and the highest ever profits, all of them. It's been a really, really strong, you know, year for us gone by. If you look at the remarketing group, it's up 22% on yearly revenues. Profits, EBITDA is up 57%, margin has jumped to 28%, and profit after tax is up 66%. If you're looking at for the quarter, revenue is up again 22%, EBITDA is up 56%, and profit after tax is up 42%. It's been, as I said, again, a really strong quarter for the remarketing business as well.
If you look at OLX India, for the year total income is up 22%, EBITDA is up 54%, and profit's up 77%, and for the quarter it's 16%, EBITDA 34%, and profit after tax 44%. They've had a strong year as well. You know, these are the high-level financial metrics which I wanted to share with all of you. Obviously, I'm happy to take all your questions and share, you know, and clarify all the doubts you might have as well. We can take questions now.
Thank you very much, sir. 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 withdraw yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handset while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. First question is from the line of Siddhartha Bera from Nomura. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity and congrats, sir, on a good set of numbers. Sir, first question is on the classified business. I mean, we have taken quite a few initiatives in the last few quarters and have rolled out new products as well on both Elite Buyer as well as verification. The growth momentum seems to be taking longer to sort of see an acceleration. If you can share some more color on where are we in terms of monetization? How is the response for some of these products which we have launched, and how should we expect the growth to be for the next few years?
Sure. I think you mean in the OLX business. OLX has grown by 16% in the quarter. We obviously Elite Buyer and both Verification. Verification was launched in the last few weeks of the quarter. Verification and Elite Buyer has been around for a few months. The adoption of both these products has been extremely strong. I think, you know, you'll very soon, maybe this quarter, start seeing the impact of it, because impact has been in almost very rarely in platform that these are buyers monetized. We've actually had I would say strong success in the both the products Verification and Elite Buyer. Like I said, you'll start seeing the numbers play out immediately, in my opinion. You can already see it, you know, on a daily basis.
I think from this quarter onwards, you'll start seeing the impact of these products. When you look at OLX as a whole, we feel very optimistic about the monetization opportunities within OLX. Last quarter we launched a couple of other AI initiatives as well in OLX. You know, as we go on this year there'll be series of launches of new products. We feel very, very confident about Elite Buyer verification and the other B2C and C2C initiatives being done by the company. I think you should see this momentum of monetization step up now. Immediately you should see it.
Any more products, can you sort of elaborate what are we planning to do for the coming years, which you said that we should see a pickup?
Sure. First within Elite Buyer itself, Elite Buyer is a suite of products for us, right? We started off with, you know, visibility, bringing in trust with Elite Buyer. We are moving to agentic AI with Elite Buyer. It's got a very unique matchmaking tool which has gone live. If you are looking to buy a product, it helps you find that product and matchmakes it to exactly what you want, which enables you to do transactions. It's of course, using what we call a matchmaking agent, which has been built grounds up. It is moving also, as we disclosed earlier in presentations to various other agents which suppose you're buying any product, used product, it'll help you price it.
If you don't know what price to pay, it'll instantly tell you how what price you should pay for it. In many products it'll also give you a condition check. What we're able to do today with photographic image recognition, we're able to judge condition. I think what we are trying to do is when you buy a product, the Elite Buyer program with multiple agents now, which will get launched and as I said, you'll see them one after the other, as consumers, to use. You will be able to buy a used product by understanding how to find and matchmake a product, a seller, understand the price, understand the condition. That's one family of, you know, initiatives.
There's another family of initiatives that if you're going to sell your product, this is also, you know, got rolled out. There's a matchmaking on that side too. If you're going to sell a car or a bike or a refrigerator or something, how do we instantly give you a customer waiting for this product, right? That also requires a matchmaking agent, which has been built. When you're going to sell your product, you understand price. Are you able to negotiate price? There's pricing agent, negotiation agents on the other side as well. These are various AI initiatives, you know, which are using OLX core proprietary data to give you a better experience. These are various stages of rollout. The matchmaking in a very small way is already rolled out to consumers on OLX.
As I said, these are all at various stages of this launch. There's also a verification product which we've talked about on which brings further trust and safety in a platform like this. It tells, you know, it tells you who can be trusted or who can be trusted. You know, it also comes on the fact that a very large number of OLX users are more than five years old. We, from their behavior, we are able to analyze, intelligently who can be trusted or who can be trusted actually at this point. That's another family we've talked about, you know, building fintech and we are at various stages of development of building a financing product for people who want to buy used products.
There are multiple such initiatives. The intent is to keep building products which help transactions on the platform and obviously help us monetize in a far better manner, sir.
Understood, sir. Lastly, sir, on the consumer business, I mean, good performance here as well. Can you just elaborate a bit more on the OEM dealer mix? How has it changed in the quarter? In terms of outlook, given some of these rising steep cost pressures we are seeing across the industry, how do you see the growth, I mean, going from here for the next year? Do you see any risk of deceleration or do you think this growth momentum is can continue for you? Some thoughts there.
One is that the car industry in the last seven months has had steep growth, including April as well. As you know that the car industry grew by approximately 20% in April itself. We feel very optimistic about the year ahead for growth for the consumer business. Any growth rate which we've, you know, which we've already shown last year or the year before, or the year before that, we obviously feel very optimistic about the next year or the years ahead as well. We also feel reasonably optimistic about the car industry itself. You know, that there should be some growth momentum just looking with the GST tax reduction and demand escalation which has taken place post that. We continue to see that.
We completely feel very optimistic about the growth in the car industry or the bike industry for that matter, for the next, you know, one or two, three years ahead, actually. Nothing has changed. We feel as optimistic as we did, you know, three months ago or five months ago. Yeah, market condition in the car industry are quite favorable, or the two-wheeler industry for businesses like ours. Aneesha, you wanna give the breakup of this dealer and OEM and I don't think much has changed, but do you wanna give a breakup?
Sure. It's about 70/30, OEM being 70 and dealer being 30 of our revenue.
Okay.
Non-consumer revenue of that.
Yeah. Okay. Sure. Thank you. I will come back and thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Vijit Jain from Citigroup. Please proceed.
Yeah. Hi. Thank you. Hi Vinay.
Hi.
My question is on SuperDost . First off, you know, good to see a unified C2B product. Do you need to spend on advertising and promotions to popularize SuperDost ?
SuperDost already launched. It is in the initial phase launched for all the dealers in India. As you know, OLX and CarWale has almost all used car dealers in India listing or buying vehicles from the platform. What it does today, it basically, it's already live. If you're a dealer looking to sell a car.
Right
The dealer can just take a photograph of a car they want to sell and instantly matchmakes customers around in a local environment which can buy that car. It is basically something we promised in an earnings call earlier as well. It's something called instant sale, right. Which basically uses AI to align customers to a particular kind of car and does it instantly, so that if a dealer keeps inventory for 60 to 90 days, how do you bring that inventory under five days, or stock, right. It gives you customers immediately. I think it's been very well received. It's just been launched about 30 odd days ago. It's done extremely well and very well received. It's early days as of yet.
We're using AI in that form, and SuperDost will get more functionality as we go on, you know, for dealers. There's a consumer version of that which I talked about in the previous question which is really This is matchmaking actually. Pricing and condition check will come with matchmaking, and it'll come to consumers too. SuperDost for consumers will get launched very soon, where they can instantly do the same as dealers can. If you, if somebody, you and me looking to buy a car, we'll get a feature like this available to you with the Elite Buyer Program.
Understood. Vinay, so essentially right now, from what I can understand, this works on WhatsApp.
Yeah
Gets onto WhatsApp or a consumer gets onto WhatsApp and they put those messages.
Yeah
et those messages
Yes
Right? To what you are mentioning, it seems like, you would build this out into a full-fledged platform.
We won't be able to build an independent platform. It's a, i t's rendered on WhatsApp. The underlying technology is it's only a. WhatsApp is the communication or the tool at this point. You could put a photo on WhatsApp and it'll instantly give you three customers. The back end technology is being built at OLX and CarTrade, right? It can be rendered across on any platform. It'll go live on OLX, it could go live on CarWale, it could go live on any platform we have to render it. We just started WhatsApp because that's been very convenient for consumers and dealers, but it'll go across all our platforms.
Understood. Then in the presentation, you mentioned that there are 2 million plus buyers and sellers. Is this a count of people who have already engaged with or messaged SuperDost as of now? Is that how one should?
No, no.
Okay.
The 2 million buyers and sellers are people who come every month to buy or sell cars on OLX or CarWale.
I see.
Used cars.
Okay.
Only used cars, sorry. Only used, it's not new. Yeah.
Okay. Sorry.
It's a significant scale every month. This is not a one-off. This is like every month. Yeah.
Great. sorry, just to get back to that question.
Yeah.
Would you think you would need to, you know, kind of promote SuperDost as is?
No, it don't need to actually.
For it to gain traction?
Because actually, as you know, we have almost like 31 million people on OLX every month and, you know, 50 odd million on CarWale/BikeWale. It'll be available to the 80 million people. It's right now available for dealers for cars. It is also, by the way, a version of it, a matchmaking, going to be available for all our products on OLX, not just cars. That will go live soon. Yeah, so it's, it started at cars, but it's gonna go to even if you're buying a, I don't know, a refrigerator, it would apply the same way. It goes across everything. Yeah.
Understood. Then just imagining that, you know, people use this for cars, for refrigerators, everything.
Yeah
If they're engaging with this on these different platforms, the proposition here is not that, you know, people can hold an account on SuperDost separately as such. That's not the proposition here.
No. You actually have to buy something on OLX to get onto SuperDost.
Got it.
Even today, that is the case.
Understood.
SuperDost is a brand of a tool which assists you. You have to buy something on OLX to give access to it anyway. If you are an OLX Elite Buyer, you might get access. You have to buy something on OLX to become or get, even today, by the way, to get access to SuperDost.
Understood.
It's not a free product. Yeah.
Okay. Understood. My next question is on the remarketing business. You know, there are two components to it, right? One is, of course, the institutional sellers, the corporate sellers, where you can have these macro cyclical driven growth momentum, and the other is obviously the retail one. You know, any broad sense you can give me on, you know, what is the underlying growth that you think you can sustain in the retail segment? I'm not necessarily asking for the next quarter, but maybe just to kind of visualize and help understand, you know, how much of that cyclicality has been blunted by retail from an ongoing basis.
Sure. I think the first thing is the institution is not cyclical. I think there was a period for about a year in between post-COVID where repossession dropped because loans were not given at COVID time. That is a one-off. It is not a cyclical cycle where it goes up and down every quarter or every year. That's the first correction. Even the institutional business is not necessarily cyclical, but, you know, I actually think both the repossession side and the retail side will keep growing, is our view, right? The retail side is of course small dealers, or owners coming in, you know, buying or selling vehicles. The institutional side is just a buyer eventually coming in bulk. That's the difference.
We see actually strong momentum of growth in both areas, to be honest. We don't see any reason not to believe that for the next few years ahead.
And-
As long as, I think, like I said, as long as new loans are being given in India, which is happening.
Sure
For any automotive product, I think you're going to have repossession, right? There was just a period in COVID when that done for about a year and a half, and that did not happen.
Understood. Vinay, I have one last question from my side.
Yeah
You know, acquiring the Automall business 100%?
No, not at this point. Nothing I can comment on.
I see.
No, I don't think so. I think, for us, the partners we've got there are fantastic partners to have. I think we've not nothing to update on it or nothing to say on it at this point, so no.
Understood. Understood.
Having them obviously is a huge, huge advantage for the company and for us.
Okay. Understood. Got it. Thank you so much. Those were my questions.
Thank you. Thanks. Thanks.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Nishit Jalan from Axis Capital. Please proceed.
Yeah, hi. Hi Vinay. Hi Aneesha. Congrats on very good set of numbers again. Just two questions from my side. On OLX, this Initiative of Elite Buyer, Elite Seller, is doing well, and you have now introduced SuperDost. Just wanted to understand in OLX, can you share some breakdown in terms of revenues coming from advertisement and subscription as in used car dealer taking a subscription, right? Advertisement. Versus from these new Initiatives like Elite Buyer, Elite Seller or SuperDost where buyer and seller needs to pay, right? This could become a much bigger opportunity. My second question is on remarketing. Just wanted to understand what would be the broad mix now on repossessed and retail segment.
If you can throw some light on remarketing in terms of which segment is witnessing stronger growth compared to others, right? In terms of retail or repossessed or anything, right? If you can also add, apart from take rate, right? We do offer some value-added activities in remarketing. What would be the share of revenues coming from that value-added activities, and is it on the rising trend?
Sure. I think the first part is whether it's Elite Buyer verification, what part of revenue is it and what is the traditional revenue? The traditional revenue is pretty much most of it. It's very insignificant at this point, the Elite Buyer. I mean, it's really kicked off in the last two, three months, so it's very insignificant in the last year. One thing is going to change is that from this year, I feel in the next few quarters you'll see Elite Buyer and verification becoming significant for the company. We're very optimistic on definitely Elite Buyer in terms of monetization in the very near term. You'll start seeing that significant. It is not, When I say insignificant, probably, Aneesha Bhandary can correct me, probably less than 5% last year for sure.
Yeah.
It's going to become significant in our opinion this year. We should start seeing maybe from this quarter or the next quarter. We can already see that trend, as I said, in the last month or so. That's one. The second question is around what are the new segments apart from repossession or retail in Shriram Automal l. We feel really optimistic about, like we are focused heavily on is commercial vehicles, for example, where we feel we are right now working closely with the OEM on trade-in for all their commercial vehicles, right? If you want to buy a new commercial vehicle and you want to trade in your old one, we are building a partnership and a product with one OEM right now where, you know, the vehicles can go back to Shriram Automall 's auction, right? All the trade-in vehicles.
There are multiple such initiatives on commercial vehicle side. I also feel very optimistic about the farm equipment side. Apart from, you know, repossession, retail, and all the other things we do. These are some of the initiatives on new supply sources, you know, we are building. I think the third question was around what is the value-added service income versus the auction income. The value-added service and the auction income here are correlated, right? In a way. Because if you have a buyer fees or buyer management fees or you have, you know, some small clients paying a little bit of parking fees, they are very correlated with the auction revenue. I would take it, you know, and really say these are all correlated with each other.
Very large percent of these fees are auction related in a way because they're all bunched together. I think the one area of fees which is slightly outside is about 10% or less is the inspection fees. Otherwise, all these other are very auction related by itself.
Thanks for answering, Vinay. Vinay, my thought process to understand on remarketing was, like I asked from the OLX side, is the share of value-added revenue in remarketing going up, right? Because there is always a limit to how much take rate can you take from consumers, right?
I think it comes from two different places if you're talking about take rate. We answer this slightly differently, where if the take rate was to grow, like for example, one of the initiatives we're thinking about is financing dealers who buy on our platform, right? Not ourselves. Again, a marketplace model. Thousands of people buy vehicles every month. In fact, the total turnover is almost transaction turnover almost INR 4,000-5,000 crores. It is a question that, you know, can you finance some of those? That will be value-added financing. We think value-added is not the core auction fees or related. We think value-added is completely a new line of fees, right? Those are the kind of fees we'd work on. Inspection is completely a new fee, fees which I've told you.
Right.
It's about 10% or so. We think value-added is not related directly to an auction of a vehicle. It's something people need when they auction a vehicle, buying or selling.
Yeah, that's the reason I'm asking. That's the reason I'm asking.
Yeah. We actually think financing is one area. Marketplace financing is something we're looking at very closely there to increase value, yeah, absolutely.
What I was also trying to understand was, like you mentioned, inspection is 10% of revenues, right?
Yeah.
Similarly, are there any other big value-added activity that has already started contributing to revenues apart from take rate and parking fees?
No, I wouldn't say any significant at this point, no. It's mostly auction fees.
Okay. Okay. One question on OLX side again in terms of follow-up, right? When you talk about that the active buyer and seller will become significant, right? Let's say, let's not talk in quarters. One, two, three quarters, right? Let's say three years' time, right? In three years' time, where do you see this segment? Can it contribute like a 30%, 40% of-
It could be—N o, it could be more than that, I would say. It could be more than that.
Okay. Okay.
Just remember one thing that I think one data point which is very important is that there are six times buyers to sellers on the platform, which is obvious. If someone is selling.
Yeah.
There are many buyers, right?
Yes.
The bulk of the users on this platform come to buy, right? On a daily basis. The monetization opportunity is multiple fold there.
Yeah.
Multiple fold, I would say. Yeah. Which is why it's such a significant initiative for the company.
Okay. Sorry, just to harp on it and maybe if I could just ask one more follow-up.
Yeah.
Obviously, this buyer can become really big for you in the next three years. The traditional channel in terms of advertising or in terms of the subscription fees that you charge from used car dealers, that will be more a link to inflation or whatever annual increase that you ask them?
I actually think— No. There's so many new products for sellers.
Okay.
Which are being built today, and the seller base is growing. It is. To me, there is no inflation or any growth rate which you could apply. It can be completely disproportionate in the years ahead, the way the product's being created. I would not. I don't want to give a guidance anyway, I would not.
Yeah.
I think that this is gonna be inflation. We're just way too early in the day to look at the number of seller products or buyer products being created right now that, like I said, the growth could be any percentage. It's. There's just no limit.
Thanks. Thanks, Vinay. All the best for the future.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Sachin Dixit from JM Financial. Please go ahead.
Hi, Vinay and Aneesha.
Hi.
Congratulations on the decent set of results.
Thank you.
I had two questions, both on OLX. The first is obviously, I think you have explained already that there are some initiatives which will work out well in the near future. I just wanted to understand what happened this quarter, right? You had guided very clearly about there being higher momentum in the coming quarter when we were discussing-
Yeah.
The same result last quarter. I mean, why did it drop from 18.5% growth to 15.5% this quarter? What happened?
No, I don't think I think it is pretty similar. I mean, first of all, I mean, not that it matters, but this quarter is two days less, and some of the online platform, it does matter.
We are talking about YoY anyways.
Yeah. No. YoY it's anyway grown 16%, right? That's one. I think normally Q3 for us is a slightly better quarter. It's just the October phase of consumer products in India. Generally, you know, honestly, Sachin, it's not much difference, and we feel pretty similar to what we felt the previous quarter. Some of the initiatives like verification.
No, the reason why.
Were perhaps launched two months late. two launched 2 months late.
The reason why I'm pushing on this, Vinay, is, I mean, OLX obviously has had a checkered track record.
Absolutely.
In the last couple of quarters, we noticed that, yeah, we are seeing some momentum pick up, and which is what you highlighted.
Correct.
In the last earnings call as well, again, YoY growth has dipped, which is why I'm asking, right?
Yeah.
Is it a sign of something falling apart for us or?
No, I don't think.
Very easily reversible is my question?
No, no. I actually feel the other way around. I feel I'm more optimistic than I was last quarter. In my opinion, it's the other way around, I think. Like I said, we did launch verification like about 45 days later than we thought. It's a completely new product, and we wanted to go out with it completely done. A lot of these things, sometimes the product development may take a little longer, but we feel extremely optimistic as we did the previous quarter. Nothing has changed for us at OLX.
Understood. Understood. Just one more question on OLX only, and which is on the employee cost side.
Yeah.
There is a lot more variability in OLX employee cost compared to what we see in New Auto, for example, or in the consumer group.
Sure.
Is there a significant portion of our employee workforce here which is slightly more variable, that revenue goes up, it goes up, revenue goes down, it goes down, compared to most of our other businesses where it's largely fixed sort of employee base?
No, the employee base is same. Just one moment. Employee base is absolutely same. In fact, the employee cost year-over-year is up 4%.
No, I'm just talking about quarterly, right? I do understand that there will be appraisals in a certain quarter.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Every quarter it seems to be like moving up INR 1, 2 crore on a INR 19 crore base, so seems a decent sort of movement, in the last year we had a lot more variability.
No, it's up for the whole year like 4%, right? If you see here, employee cost for the year is up 4%. It's INR 73 crores to INR 75 crores. The movement, it could be in a provisioning, but there is not really the whole. Anyway, the other way to answer the question is the cost of or the kind of people are very similar to other businesses, especially CarWale. We also don't see much change in employee cost next year, if that's a question that I can give you guidance on.
No, that's not the question.
It's last year.
I-I-I-
Yeah.
The rise in employee cost is not a concern. You know.
No. Yeah.
If there is a significantly more variable component in employee cost.
No, there isn't. In fact, here the variable is the least in the group it would be the least, the variable people.
Understood. Understood. Sure.
The variable component is least in OLX because it's a very online tech-driven business, so it'd be the least. Yeah.
Got it. Got it. Sure. Thanks. Thanks so much.
Yeah. The way I would think almost is, yeah, if you look at the cost growth of OLX is actually 1% for the year and 4% in employee cost. Yeah.
Yeah. That's what I was saying.
Yeah.
Cost growth is not a concern.
Yeah. Yeah.
Understand the nature of the cost.
Yeah. It's not different. It's not different from In fact, like I said, it's even less variable than in other companies. I think that's one of the reasons the margins are also up, right? If you see the margins are up year-over-year margins. I've gone on 23%-31%. I think that also shows.
Yeah. Yeah. Right.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Before we move to the next question, ladies and gentlemen, in order to ensure that the management is able to address questions from all the participants in the conference, please restrict yourself to two questions only. Should you have a follow-up question, please rejoin the queue. Next question is from the line of Hardik Doshi from White Whale Partners. Please proceed.
Yeah, thanks for taking my question.
Thank you.
Clearly, you know, the last fiscal year and even going into FY 2027, the business momentum is very strong. I just wanted to kind of ask more from a, let's say, medium-term perspective. Obviously, the big elephant in the room is AI, and I appreciate all these, you know, the efforts that and initiatives that you've taken to embed AI into our business. From a more, let's say, larger picture perspective, how do you view the risk of, you know, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini kind of, you know, the traffic shifting from Google to the to these platforms and thereby circumventing the traffic that comes onto our platform?
Yeah. The first part is, you know, we are 95% organic, right? As a company. For example, OLX, almost all its traffic comes on an app directly. It's 100% of its traffic actually is organic. You must remember that when you look at the opportunity ahead for us, the first thing is people come to our platform because the brand and the trust in those brands. The second is because there is differentiated IP and platform experience. You know, buying a used car on OLX or finding a used car on OLX or finding the price for the car you need to buy is almost impossible in any third-party platform, horizontal or vertical. A lot of our data sits behind which is not publicly available.
The underlying data, whether it is, you know, customer data, vehicle data, other data which we have, sits behind, which obviously LLMs and others cannot access. Therefore, the fact that the brand trust, the IP of technology, platform services, as well as the data is proprietary, makes AI for us a massive opportunity. That is why when you're looking to sell your car, we can in one second match three customers right for you in your locality because of the data we carry. We're able to match, we can understand, the car you're selling, what price people should pay, what the condition of the car might be through all the data we carry, and then, you know, how do we get three customers which suit you or 10 customers which suit you. To me, AI is a massive opportunity.
What we are doing this year is building a series of agents, matchmaking agents, pricing negotiation agents, condition checking agents. Tomorrow it'll be listing agents, buying agents, loan agents, which will use all our proprietary data and technology and make the consumer experiences platforms even better than what it is today. For us, it's a massive opportunity for the next few months, few years ahead as well. We just see is like a massive benefit for the company, you know, going ahead.
Got it. I appreciate, you know, that, on remarketing and OLX, you know, used car platform, you know, it's difficult. But on the consumer side.
Yeah
You know, how are you viewing the potential risk of, you know, the, like people using agents and kind of directly dealing with dealers and not coming onto your platforms?
Yeah. There are two parts here, right? First is when you're looking to buy a car, it's an INR 12 lakh car. It's not like booking an airplane ticket for INR 20,000, right? It's not commoditized. You're looking to buy a car, the process may take 30-60 days, depending, you know, on what your sense of urgency is. You're going to do a deep amount of work to buy that car. I think when you see Google AI mode or anything come out, search has gone up, but the relevance for platform like ours has gone up even more. Our traffic has gone up as search has gone up, in fact, during this phase of the last 18 months as well.
As you can see the numbers always, our traffic has continuously gone up in this phase. Number one. Number two is a lot of the data we carry on platform like CarWale or BikeWale are proprietary to us and to our users. It's not available on third-party platforms at this point, right? Or not likely to be available. Number three, the integration we have with OEMs and dealers. For example, if you want to know the exact price or the discount on the car, or you wanna get a loan immediately approved, or you wanna get a trade-in price for your car, these are not accessible to third-party horizontal platforms, right? There's enough differentiated data, enough differentiated depth of experience, which makes us feel very optimistic obviously of greater use of platforms like ours, right? That's exactly what is happening.
As you use Google AI more, which is probably the larger used platform in the country, you come to CarWale even more because it may answer one question, but when you buy a car, you want more than one answer. You want to go through a series of immersive experiences to really decide what you want to do with it, and then where you want to buy it from and what price you want to pay. We feel actually this has actually worked heavily in our favor in the last 16-18 months.
Got it. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Ritvik Agarwal from 3P Investment Managers. Please go ahead.
Okay. Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. I had two questions. First, was on the lines of quality of dealer leads. Are there any measures that we are planning to take or we have taken to improve the quality of dealer leads in the consumer business? Additionally, anything on the pricing side for the leads? Any sense on the value proposition that you're hearing from dealers?
No, not really. I mean, we continuously, this is a continuous effort of the company every day to, you know, work closely with dealers to improve conversion ratios, right? Whether conversion ratios involves, you know, improvements in our platform or improvements in dealer follow-up and, you know, closing. It's a permanent exercise which has been going on for years and years, and we continue to do that. We obviously have lots of metrics in place to track this and measure this, but this is absolutely, you know, important initiative for the company, and we keep doing this, you know, every single day. What was the second question? Sorry. It was around leads and, w hat was the second question?
Yeah, basically just wanted to get a feedback, on the pricing.
Pricing. The pricing is pretty static. You know, we mostly focus on volume increases and depth of the impact we make with the dealer. There are pricing increases, they're more inflationary in nature. The bulk of the growth comes from higher relevance and volume.
Okay. One more question on the AI aspect. Is there any change in discussions that you're having with OEMs, basically that, you know, from the onset of AI, is there any change in the discussions or the tone of OEMs regarding their marketing expenses being diverted towards you?
Yeah. There is a lot of initiative from our side, and with OEMs too, on how we can improve the experience using AI for consumers which come on our platform, right? Can we have agents which gives us more data from an OEM which helps the customer buy? Can we have agents which integrate the consumer, us and the OEM and the bank even closer? There are everyday discussions on how we can improve experience for our users on our platform with the help of the OEM, sometimes on our own, you know, sometimes with bank selves, with all our partners actually. It's a very central conversation across all our companies to improve consumer experience on the platform or enhance it with multiple AI tools. That also involves integrating people with banks and OEMs and dealers.
Understood. Any, sorry, last question. Just on the-
Sure.
Traffic on the websites, across the websites, was there any dip or any seasonality that you saw in this quarter, maybe an increase in the volume or a decrease?
We saw traffic grow over last year actually in this quarter. YoY growth. Normally, post Q3 is the highest in traffic for the year always. A slight decrease from Q3, but year YoY, we saw traffic increases actually.
Okay. Got it. Thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Deep Shah from NV Capital. Please go ahead.
Thank you for taking my question. Am I audible?
Yes, we can hear you.
My question is again on OLX. Sorry for harping on this again.
Sure.
I mean, just want to understand monetization a bit better. If you just could give me some metrics as to how much, I mean, revenue is from like consumers, how much is from dealers. Currently, like, do we only, like, monitor dealers currently or?
Sure.
You launched new products like verification, Elite Buyer. I mean, consumers also are also being monetized. Just over a medium, like two to three year period, you said this could be the new verticals could, I mean, give you 30% to 40% of the revenues, right? Just want to get, like, more understanding on.
Yeah.
What drivers you have?
Sure.
What products? Yeah.
Sure. We've got two basic sets of customers, the sellers and the buyers, right? In sellers, there are consumers and their dealers. We monetize both today. Sellers like you and me can also come for free. Many times sellers like you and me come and pay for more visibility or other services, or if they want to multiple, I think the first time for a lot of consumers who come and list a car or any other product, it's free. The second time is chargeable. Many people come multiple times, and therefore we charge consumer sellers even today. We charge dealers at all times when they sell, right? For selling. The Elite Buyer program is aimed at charging for consumers and dealers for buying services, right?
As a consumer, if you come to buy today, it's completely free unless you use an Elite Buyer service. The Elite Buyer service is superior to obviously buying without that service. That product is getting better and better every day, and that's another monetization tool. Verification is really for consumers like you and me again. There are dealer initiatives and consumer initiatives across all the spectrum of activities. At this point, the consumer listing business, which is people like you and me selling a product, the revenue is quite high actually from that business. As we go on, we think even the Elite Buyer program primarily right now is monetizing consumers like you and me more than dealers at this point. We actually think the consumer side of monetization, buyers or sellers, will become a large part of the company.
Even within that, consumer buyers, which is the largest population of people on the platform, is going to become extremely significant in this year and probably very large in the next two to three years.
Got it, sir. Secondly, on margins, for the consumer platform, I think we are at for the full year, we did I think 38% EBITDA margins.
Right.
OLX, we did around 31%. I mean, just speaking next, I mean, do you see this trend continue for the consumer business? I would say we are at a pretty high 38% margin. Do you see this still being expanding?
Yes, margins will expand this year.
On OLX, do you see this converging with the consumer?
Yeah, I think so. Margins across all businesses will expand. I do see OLX is already close to consumer business, but it'll probably get there, if not go ahead even. I think margins across the businesses will go up in the current year. Costs are actually quite stable. Also here, even if you look at our three, four, five year, how we think about the business, we got a profit after tax, as you've seen, is INR 243 crores this year. I mean, one of the goals we set ourselves is, you know, to get to approximately INR 1,000 crore profit in the next four years or four to four, maybe five years, between four and five, which is 4x.
We'll see margins shoot up in all these businesses as we head towards that INR 1,000 crore objective, you know, in the next four to maybe five years.
Sir, that answers my question. Thank you so much and all the best.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Shrenik Mehta from Indo Wealth GmbH. Please proceed.
Hello, am I audible?
Yes.
I had only one question. This was about your ROE. Your EBITDA has already gone up to 33%. Margins are looking healthy, but still the ROE is very low at 10%, which is below the cost of capital. One of the major reasons for your
The ROE actually, the cash, the cash in the company, yeah. The major reason for the ROE being 10 is because-
Yeah, because of the cash in the company.
The cash in the company. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Actually, the business ROE is much higher, as you know.
Or even-
The business ROE is much-
Whereby that.
Yeah. I feel like in due course, you know, whether it is, you know, returning money to shareholders or other modes is something we will consider. I think at this point, the current regulation, because of our tax shelters and carryforward losses prevents us from doing that. You're right, I think the ROE is at 10% because of the cash balance. If the cash balance didn't exist, the ROE would be very, like, much higher, of course.
Yeah. When do you think that possibility would come in from your regulation?
Aneesha, you wanna answer that question? I think maybe two to three years. I think we've also got tax shelters that the company benefits from. I think it will be two to three years, Aneesha. Is that correct?
Yes. Yes, Vinay. Absolutely right.
Yeah.
Okay. You're not looking at any acquisition in the meantime or any other way of utilizing this cash, right?
No, there's nothing at this point to report on a prospective M&A or utilization of cash at this point. We obviously keep looking at M&A, but there's nothing at a level that we can at this point, you know, give feedback on or report.
All right. All right. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Vimal Jamnadas Goel from Alchemy Capital Management Private Limited . Please proceed.
Yeah. Thank you so much. Congrats on a good set of numbers.
Thank you.
I just wanted to make sure, one aspect, whether we have any seasonality in our consumer business, which is CarWale BikeWale in the March quarter.
There's always seasonality, actually not in the March quarter. There's a seasonality, a little bit of seasonality in the October to December quarter because of the festivities in India, right? I mean, typically, Diwali, Dussehra, the automotive market tends to be far more buoyant. There are a lot more launches, you know, a lot more going on. There's a little bit of uptake, you know, which is higher then. You know, so the other tends to be quite even actually after that. It's only the one quarter which tends to be slightly different.
Understood. Understood. Just on your comments on OLX, you mentioned the Elite programs, both buyer, seller, may contribute roughly five or maybe less. Given the fact that you are seeing an immediate impact of these from Q1 onwards, is it a fair argument that these, the contribution may double in 2027?
You mean the contribution by margins?
What will be the margins?
You mean margins?
Revenue.
The revenue might double, is your question? Is that your question?
Yes. From Elite only.
I mean, Oh, yeah. From Elite it will, I mean, Elite is very small base, so I don't think we should think of it doubling or tripling or anything because the base last year very small.
Okay. Fair enough. Couple of data points, sir. If I may have the auction listings for this quarter and the auction volumes.
Aneesha, you wanna give that?
Sure. The auction list listings about INR 1.7 million and volumes is about INR 3 lakhs.
INR 3 lakhs. Okay, fair enough. Thank you, sir, and all the very best.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Ujwal Sil from ANR Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Am I audible?
Yes, we can hear you.
Congratulations on the good set of results. Almost all of my questions have been answered. I just wanted to reconfirm about the ROEs, because actually, my line got disconnected. I just wanted to confirm that there are no acquisition plans or utilization plans in the near future, and we are looking at, like, giving back to the shareholders after two or three years, right?
Well, at this point, as I said, you know, there is nothing which you can report about any M&A. Obviously, our attempt would be that there's no utilization of cash. We, of course, as you know, last year we generated INR 300 crore of additional cash.
Right.
We obviously believe that there'll be a significant cash generation for the next two to three years as well. Obviously based on that, you know, at that point we'll have to take an appropriate decision whether there is an M&A in play or the natural thing would be to, when possible, return money back to shareholders, of course.
Got it. Next question was again on OLX. Just a follow-up question on one of the previous questions I've already asked. I just wanted to understand that.
I think this is an important question. It's an important question because one of the things, you know, which, you know, it's very evident also is that the company has also generated, EPS is INR 147 the share. I think one should keep in mind that, you know, there's a significant cash generation in the company and obviously profit creation pool in the company. Just further to your return money question.
Right. Right. Exactly. That was the main thing. That is why I asked that question because a lot of cash generation.
Right.
Ultimately that is why ROE was depressed. Secondly, I wanted to ask about again, on the OLX side, that we have taken a lot of initiatives in the last few quarters and shouldn't we have seen like a quarter-on-quarter growth as well? Because we were very optimistic in the Q 3 con call as well. I just wanted to understand, like, is there like a seasonality because.
Yeah, there is October, like I said earlier in the call. In October, November, there tends to be some seasonality in any buying, right? Whether it's a new car, used car, et cetera, et cetera. It tends to be every year. We feel very optimistic about the growth, I'll be honest, and all the product creation and even the consumer traction to this, to the platform. We feel in the next few quarters ahead you will start seeing the growth momentum dramatically changing.
Got it. That's it from my side. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Arpit Shah from Stallion Asset. Please go ahead.
Hi, Vinay.
Hi, Arpit. How are you?
Yeah. I just wanted to understand the revenue aggregation, let's say from the verification product and the Elite Buyer product. What kind of revenues are we currently and what kind of growth are we seeing month-on-month since we launched it in February and March? Can it add up, let's say, INR 10 crores of revenues every month? Do you think that is possible or it's already happening in the month of April? Just wanted to understand that bit.
Yeah, first of all, as I said, it's growth is impossible to say because it's very early. I mean, it's obviously rapidly growing, but it's impossible to give a growth rate for the growth rate.
No, I wanted to understand what are the early trends that you're seeing right now because we just launched it.
Very strong. I would say both on Elite Buyer and verification, the early trends are really strong.
How strong is strong?
Very strong consumer traction.
Just wanted to understand that.
As I said, right now the revenue is just insignificant. I think, we'll all have to wait out, you know, maybe, you know, maybe this quarter to actually, you know, be able to give you some stable answer to the question. Like I said, the early signs are very, very strong that I can put it this way. Like I said, this year it'll be significant to the company. You know, as we go on, it'll be significant. Last year it was not significant because it was launched very late. In the next year, you'll find it significant. I think in the, in the years ahead, we also get the guidance that will be probably one of our largest sources of revenue.
Got it. Given the acceleration in revenues from the newer products.
Yeah.
That it is growing very strong, do you think INR 350 crores is a conservative PAT estimate according to you?
Sorry. Sorry, just repeat the last question, last part of the question.
INR 350 crore PAT is a conservative estimate according to you for FY 2027?
Thirty-
INR 350.
I don't want to comment and give a guidance. I actually just gave you a view that our goal, of course, is to get from the INR 243 crores last year to about INR 1,000 crores of, you know, profit in about four years or five years. That's the line we are drawing. We don't want to give a year by year guidance, we have told you over the next, you know, within four, maybe five years, we want to get to the INR 1,000 crore number, which is little more than 4x today, right?
Got it. The kind of momentum that you are seeing in the new products, do you think the OLX revenue can start stepping up from here on, what we saw last quarter is about 18%?
We believe that. Absolutely right. Absolutely we believe that. You're right.
Do you think this number can start?
That's correct.
Crossing 25%, 40% once these products start.
I don't give you a guidance, but obviously we believe the growth will be stronger than what it is today. We believe that.
Are you seeing that earlier trends in April?
I can't tell you about it. I don't want to give a guidance for this quarter either.
No, I only want to-
Actually we would see Yeah.
Just wanted to understand what you are seeing already. I don't want a guidance. What you are seeing.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, like I said, it's only one month over. We definitely see April better than, you know, obviously some of the other months because new products have also got launched. It's, you know, it's early days and I don't want to give a guidance for this quarter or this year. I've given you a four to five year, you know, profit objective of the company and the group as a whole. We've definitely given also a guidance that we feel very optimistic about monetization and the consumer traction at OLX, both.
Hi, Vinay. This is Amit Jeswani here.
Hi, Amit. How are you?
Hi. Hi. Hi. Would that be right that for us to go 4x in profit, our revenues will have to go 3x? By that point of time, OLX, which is a INR 200 crore product, will become like an INR 1,000 crore kind of product, like a 5x, 6x kind of—
I don't wanna give a revenue guidance on the.
That be the last year of growth?
Yeah. Yeah.
Will it be consumer?
I think it'll come across all our three platforms, to be honest. We feel optimistic about all three. I don't wanna give you a revenue guidance, whether it's 3x or, you know, 2x or 4x. I feel our margin structure is strong. Therefore we feel optimistic that, you know, in all the work we do, that normally when we add, you know, a rupee of revenue, a very large part goes to profit, which continues, right? Our margins will become They're already best in class and get even better in the next three, four years ahead, which will contribute to getting us to this longer term goal of the company. Yeah, we are in the journey at this point.
I don't want to give a further guidance on revenue, but yeah, generally we feel good about the fact there is enough opportunity and time in the company that we can aspire or get to this goal of what we have given to you today.
At this point of time, there's no see that our stock price has fallen 40% or only because of the AI. At this point of time, Vinay, you don't see AI as a risk, you see it as an opportunity for us.
Of course, we believe AI is a massive opportunity for the company. I think for us because of just the brand trust, technology, platforms, differential IP, data, it's a massive opportunity for the group across all its businesses actually.
If AI is a risk, the first point.
Sorry to interrupt, Mr. Jeswani. We please request you to rejoin the queue, sir, for the follow-up question. Thank you.
Okay. Thanks.
Ladies and gentlemen, please restrict yourselves to two questions only. Should you have a follow-up question, please rejoin the queue. Next question is from the line of Rehan Saiyyed from Trinetra Asset Managers. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good afternoon to the team. Thanks for taking my question.
Yeah.
I have two questions, sir. Question one is, over the last few quarters, we have observed that even when overall auto industry growth was negatively noted. The company advertising and platform revenues continued to grow strongly. However, with auto sales now recovering after a GST related benefit, advertising growth actually has to have moderated slightly. Is there any counter cyclical behavior in this business model or is this more related to changes in OEM marketing spend and content timing?
I think over the last many years, we've shown growths in the consumer business in CarWale, BikeWale across all kinds of markets, right? There were times when the market did not grow for 18 months, and we grew at a rapid rate. There were time when the market grew, and we grew at a rapid rate. I like to think we are completely agnostic to, you know, beyond a level to new car growth or new bike growth sales. We benefit when car and bike sales grow. I think we're seeing that trend also in the last six months, which we've shown to you in both the quarters. We also feel optimistic with the GST cut rate, you know, that the two-wheeler and the car market should have a reasonable headway to grow for the next one, two, three years ahead.
It's become far more affordable for every, you know, consumer. Naturally, we feel optimistic in this market situation where the car sales, bike sales grow. We normally always grow, but even in the slowdown we grow. But it is always better that the industry grows, and that growth for us is far more impactful, I would say.
Just wanted to confirm, is there a correlation between the GST cut sales and TK momentum?
Sorry. Are you saying the growth rate of the car industry is because of that? Is that the question?
Yeah.
It's not clear. The car industry growth rate has changed from the GST cut. That is clear. That's from the October sales of automotive cars, I mean, new cars in India or new bikes in India. The growth rate is obviously impactful because of the excellent decision to cut taxes on cars and bikes. It has had the impact in India, of course.
Okay. Okay. Then my second question is around the company has built a very large physical auction infrastructure across India. How difficult is it for a new player to replicate this network today? Are you seeing any absurd pricing or aggressive competition in the auction business?
I mean, we carry, I think now 130 auction sites, right? Where a lot of our customers park vehicles and then we do an online sale. I think in a country like India, the defensibility for us in that business, in our remarketing business, is multiple. It is of course the physical infrastructure, it is impossible to recreate. It is also the technology, the underlying IP in the platform. It is the buyer and seller, the network effects of buyers and sellers, thousands and thousands and millions of buyers and sellers across the platform. It is many things which create a defensibility. It is difficult to duplicate the physical infrastructure, but there are many more defensible, I mean, or many more moats in that business.
Okay. Okay. Okay. That's it from my side, sir. Thank you. Good luck for your coming quarter.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Nikhil Gupta from Vayu Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. Can you please provide the percentage of our revenue from advertisement in our consumer business?
It's insignificant. I mean, it's less than, I would say, advertising less than Aneesha from normal Google advertising or third party advertising, less than 5% would be.
Yes, sir.
Is it a fair understanding that in all our three segments, the revenue share from advertisement is almost insignificant, right?
No, that's not correct. I said in Shriram Automall doesn't exist. In CarWale it may be less than, you know, as I said, very insignificant. OLX also would be less than 10%. That is correct. Yeah.
Okay. You already mentioned that you do not have any plans to use the cash to maybe acquire some other business. Why is it so? If I see all the three segments we operate in, we have acquired almost all the three businesses. Why the strategy has changed? Do we not see any significant value in the market? Just wanted to know the opinion.
You know, we, what we said at this point, we do not have anything to report back on. It doesn't mean we're not looking at acquisitions or we won't do acquisitions or anything of the sort. We just said at this point there's no update to be given. I think at this point, we also have to remember that we're a company which has done M&A very successfully over the last many years. We've had three major M&As, all have been extremely successful. We always continue to look out for M&A, right? Which is strategic in nature, which the teams are good, where we feel, you know, there's synergy value, where we feel we can, you know, add value to our own customers. These are things we do every day, so it's part of our whole CarTrade Ventures initiative.
We are normally very picky and choosy, obviously, you know, valuation has to match and many things have to match. You know, but when we do come out with something, then we aggressively go after it, like with the OLX, like a OLX. It's not like we're not looking or we don't look. It's just that we haven't got something which we feel at this point we can close on. That's what the point is.
We are actively looking for M&A. Whenever we'll find opportunities, we will go about it. Is that kind of thing?
I don't wanna say we're actively or non-actively or looking or not. I just think that if something we do, we do well. If something came around, we would definitely, you know, look at it if we felt that it could add value to our customers or our shareholders, you know, or, yeah, or there's some synergy value or strategic value. Of course, we would look at it.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will take this as the last question for the day. I now hand the conference over to Aryan Sumra from MUFG Int ime for his closing remarks. Over to you, sir.
Thank you. I would like to thank the management for taking the time out for the conference today. I would like to thank all the participants to join the call. If you have any queries, feel free to contact us. We are MUFG Intime, investor relation advisors to CarTrade Tech Limited. Thank you.
Thank you, everybody. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, sir. On behalf of CarTrade Tech Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you all for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.
Thank you.