India's largest online marketplace for used goods OLX has reinforced its position as the number one destination for buying and selling of used cars in the country.
Latest data from OLX shows that the platform is the market leader in the used car space registering over 370,000 listings of used cars per month, out of which 200,000 cars get sold every month.
As per industry estimates, there are 275,000 used cars sold in India every month. According to OLX's data, the platform sells 200,000 cars monthly, implying that OLX sells 72 percent of all the used cars sold in India every month.
The number of cars sold by OLX per month is also bigger than the combined monthly sale of the two largest consumer automobile players in the country. The combined sale value (GMV) of the sold cars on OLX put together is equivalent to 1 billion USD per month.
OLX is India's number one marketplace for used goods including used cars, motorcycles, and household items, commanding 80 percent market share of the consumer-to-consumer (C2C) trade in the country. The auto category is the largest category by traffic on OLX, generating 45 percent of the traffic, resulting in 1.3 billion page-views, per month.
"OLX's success in the used cars space is a result of three distinct customer benefits that the platform offers - Largest quantity of unique and high quality user-generated listings from car owners, great value for both buyers and sellers because of disintermediation, and maximum traffic driving a steady stream of used car buyers. These benefits, put together, have made OLX the most liquid market for used cars," said CEO OLX India, Amarjit Singh Batra.
The used car market in India has grown steadily in the last few years, driven by growing disposable incomes, better living standards and high penetration of internet and mobile resulting in ease of transactions. According to industry reports, for every new car sold in India, there are approximately 1.2 used cars sold in the country.
While this figure is steadily rising, it is still distant from the developed economy standards of more than three used cars sold for every new car sale.
Each car listing on OLX is viewed on an average more than 1000 times, and receives 11 unique buyer responses. OLX also receives 1.2 million buyer enquires on used cars every month. A regional break-up of the car listings shows 52 percent of them coming from metro markets of Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Kolkata.
The remaining 48 percent of the listings come from non-metro cities. Last year, 4,000 cities and towns across India sold on OLX.
Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai, Tata, Mahindra and Toyota, in that order are the most popular brands sold on OLX. While the Maruti Alto, Maruti Swift Dzire, Toyota Innova and the Mercedes C/E Class are the most popular models in Hatch, Sedan, SUV and Premium cars respectively.
As per the Frost and Sullivan Survey, the leadership of OLX has also been corroborated by third party sources. A 2016 market survey by 'Frost and Sullivan' and OLX to determine the buying and selling behaviour of 'used cars' through both online and offline platforms in India, confirmed that online platforms such as OLX offer three times better leads over offline mediums for used cars.
According to the findings of this survey, the top reasons for deciding on the platform for selling - whether offline or online - is getting the most number of potential buyers, followed by the ease of use, and convenience. Selling online is preferred as it is considered to be hassle-free and less time consuming, and provides more leads than offline channels.
Now more and more people are using the online platform, and websites like OLX are being preferred to buy and sell 'used' vehicles. On one hand, the online buyer has a greater 'choice' in terms of variety of brands and models to choose from and on the other hand, the online seller has an opportunity to expand his potential buyer base beyond geographical boundaries.
Transactions through online websites like OLX not only reduce both cost and time of searching and spreading the word through one's network, they also give the user the liberty to decide whom to conduct the transaction with.
Disclaimer: No Business Standard Journalist was involved in creation of this content
