India’s GirnarSoft set to fight Rocket and iCarAsia for Indonesia’s auto classifieds space

A combination of low interest rates, a growing middle class, and the absence of strict regulations on car ownership has led tech companies to take a keen interest in the Indonesian market. Rocket Internet’s car classifieds site Carmudi has been operating in Jakarta for nearly one year now, although it’s currenly only seeing around 300,000 visits per month. iCarAsia’s Indonesian portal Mobil123 is doing a little better with around 740,000 monthly visits, as per SimilarWeb. (Update 7/6/15: Sonny Truyen, head of SEO at iCarAsia, reached out to contest SimilarWeb’s traffic stat for Mobil123. According to him, the site had over 4.2 million visits in June.)

According to the Indonesian Automotive Manufacturers Association, there were 1,208,019 new car sales last year in the archipelago. This is a slight dip from the year before, which saw 1,229,916. Local financial portal Indonesia-Investments credits the drop to a weakening Rupiah against the US dollar, coupled with inflation, and an economy that may be losing steam. For consumer-to-consumer car classifieds sites, however, the drop in new car sales may actually be a negligible factor. If fewer people are strolling into Astra Motor dealerships on the weekends to pick up new coups, odds are they’re looking into used vehicle alternatives.

Regardless of what caused the dip, India’s GirnarSoft, which owns CarDekho, still sees Indonesia as a green opportunity, having recently launched CarBay in Jakarta.

GirnarSoft was valued at US$300 million when it raised series B funding this past January. The company is backed by investors like Sequoia Capital, Hong Kong-based Hillhouse Capital, and Tybourne Capital. CarDekho is GirnarSoft’s largest venture, and claims to be the number one auto portal in India with around 3 million monthly visits.

See: CarTrade bags $30M to take on Sequoia-backed CarDekho

Testing the waters without classifieds

Indonesia’s CarBay is not a classifieds site yet. Instead, it’s just a content provider and resource for folks who are interested in making a purchase but still doing their homework. On the site, users can hunt for vehicles they want to know more about, filtering via price, brand, fuel efficiency, model, number of passengers, and more. Essentially, CarBay acts as a decision-making aid, and lets users easily find various dealers in Indonesia.

CarBay also lets users do instant side-by-side comparisons of up to four different vehicles at a time. The comparisons are quite thorough, and include everything from engine stats and safety features to luxury options and performance specs.

At the moment, it’s unclear how CarBay plans to monetize outside of charging its partner dealerships for content on its portal. It’s likely that the firm is simply trying to test local waters by building up its user base before plowing full-steam ahead with a classifieds play. If CarDekho’s business model is any indicator, CarBay will probably go head-to-head with the likes of Rocket Internet’s Carmudi and iCarAsia’s Mobile123.

A slowing but still favorable car market

CarBay claims vehicle sales in Indonesia have been rising at a steady 11 percent compound annual growth rate. This figure is probably referring to new and used cars alike. The company cites the nation’s annual GDP growth as one of its most encouraging stats.