Shriram Automall buys car selling portal BlueJack to strengthen offline biz

Shriram Automall India Limited (SAMIL), backed by Shriram Group and CarTrade, has acquired WaterBridge-backed BlueJack, an online car selling portal in a bid to accelerate its offline auction market position with online used car sales. Acquisition was not disclosed.

At present, 700,000 used cars are being sold in India every year valuing the market at over Rs 50,000 crore in 2022. With this acquisition, Shriram Automall targets to transact yearly over 1.2 million vehicles worth more than Rs 30,000 crore.

Along with Shriram Automall’s physical and online bidding platforms, Pan India 10 million customers of SAMIL and its affiliates will get additional means of car selling through this deal, said the company.

Since its inception in 2016, BlueJack had auctioned more than 25,000 vehicles on its platform. It operates in Delhi with dealers from 10 states, including cities like Bangalore and Hyderabad.

Sameer Malhotra, CEO of Shriram Automall, said “We are excited to upgrade our offerings across India with BlueJack. We look forward to learn from them and share our own experience of operating at scale across 150 auction locations spread over 100 tier I, tier II and tier III cities. Together, we believe we can offer the best auction experience for our Indian market with innovative technology.”

“SAMIL’s consistent ability to create unique propositions for their diverse target market & their customer obsessed culture will provide a great launchpad for BlueJack as they scale. On-boarding BlueJack is a continuation of the SAMIL promise – “Certain, omni-channel transformation of the way India rides on wheels” he added.

Manish Kheterpal, Managing Partner of WaterBridge Ventures (which is lead investor in BlueJack), said “As the fragmented used car industry formalizes both on the consumer and dealers end, using a blend of technology, data, and old-fashioned human touch is the most effective way to solve for trust deficit and friction in the industry.” He further added, “Synergies between SAMIL and BlueJack are highly compelling, and together they would be a formidable force in this rapidly growing used cars industry.”

BlueJack is expected to fully integrate with SAMIL’s operations and group companies in first half of 2020. The founders & team will supercharge traction with their technology, data and movement of the joint user base to the new platform.

There will be a lot of exciting synergies in play with SAMIL’s existing shareholders Shriram Transport Finance Company (STFC), which is the largest player in used commercial vehicles finance & MXC Solutions (which operates the leading used & new car marketplaces CarTrade and Carwale). The Group counts a base of 10 million buyers across new & used vehicles, loans, insurance, among other allied products & services.

The Indian used car market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 18%. It grew steadily in FY19, crossed the 4 million unit mark, while it is 1.2 times the size of the new car market, driven partly by increasing demand for used vehicles in Tier II and Tier III cities of India. It is further poised to reach 7 million cars per year by FY22.