Popular Car World to open 200 franchisees

Mumbai based Popular Car World, a major dealer of used cars, with the objective of organising the used car market, is expanding by opening more than 200 franchise centres across the country.

"We are coming up with about 200 franchise centres in all Indian states. We would like to organise the used car market in the country, " Naveen Choudhary, business coach of Popular Car world told Business World. The franchise centres are expected to full fledgedly open in about three months time.

In Gujarat it is in talks with dealers to open franchise centres in all major cities. "We will soon have franchise centres in Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Rajkot and all major cities," he said. The company is currently confined in Maharashtra and has four franchise centres and sells about 100 cars a month.

According to a newspaper report, the turnover in the used car market is at least Rs 1000 crore per month, Raj Sethi the managing director of the company said.

Indian used car business is still unorganized and lacks transparency and quality and is dominated by small time brokers. Customers don't have choice of cars under one location in an organized way and most of the time takes a mechanic to check the quality of the car, Naveen added.

"One of the major problem with buying new cars is its authenticity of the documents. We would be certifying all the documents. We are bringing brand value in used cars and all cars will be certified," he informed.

The franchise will recruit manpower as recommended by Popular Car world and the all cars will be bought with the approval of the company.

The company has providing finance on used cars. Popular Car World has tied up with ICICI to provide used car loans and also with ICICI "�Lombard Insurance.

Each outlet will have a space of around 1000-1500 sq ft with a parking area for 20-25 cars. There would also be an exchange of cars facilities to generate additional revenue for these franchise.