CarDekho to expand as used car mkt outperforms

Pune: CarDekho, India's largest auto-tech company, owned by the Girnar Software, is investing Rs 200 crore to expand its used car dealerships network to 200 stores over the next two years to tap the fast growing market segment.

The firm's core business is to buy and sell used cars in Asia's third biggest car market, where though new car sales have slowed down, pre-owned car sales is increasing.

Last fiscal, India sold more used cars in the market than the new cars rolled out from the factories to dealerships. Auto Industry sources estimated that while over 4 million used cars were sold in the country, the new car sales were lower at 3.3 million units.

Since January this year it has set up 31 stores in Delhi-NCR, Bangalore and Jaipur. On Tuesday it added four new stores in Pune and one in Lucknow. Plans are afoot to enter the lucrative Mumbai, India's financial hub shortly.

"We are expanding our footprint to build a trusted platform for selling used cars in the country," Vibhor Sahare, Co-Founder and CEO at Gaadi.com told Financial Chronicle. Gaadi.com was bought by CarDekho and it has been incorporated for offline stores called CarDekho Gaadi Stores since January this year.

He said CarDekho Gaadi Stores is a retail auction business model for pre-owned cars, where the store buys the car from the owner and puts it on for sale.