Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone.

I welcome you all to the Q4 and FY '26 earnings conference call for CarTrade Tech Limited. To discuss this quarter's financial performance, we have from the management, Mr.

Vinay Sanghi, Chairman and Managing Director; Ms. Aneesha Bhandary, Executive Director and CFO; and Mr.

Varun Sanghi, Chief Strategy Officer. Before we proceed with the call, I would like to mention that some of the statements made in today's call may be forward-looking and may involve risk and uncertainties.

For more details, kindly refer to the investor presentation and other filings that can be found on the company's website. Without further ado, I would like to hand over the call to the management for their opening remarks, and then we can open the floor for Q&A.

Thank you, and over to you, sir.

Thank you, and welcome to everybody to the Q4 FY '26 earnings call, and thank you for taking the time out today. I just want to start off by saying we've completed a year which has been a very strong year for the company, its growth in revenues, its growth in profits, and it's obviously its growth in margins.

If we if we look at the investor presentation shared with all of you, if you go to slide three, which is, really looking at the last three-year story of the company, at the center of our company is really innovation, and that drives our growth and profits. If you look at the three-year growth story and if you look at the compounding of the company from a revenue standpoint, the three-year CAGR is 29% of revenue, EBITDA is a 98% three-year CAGR, and the PAT CAGR is 82%.

As you as you all have seen over the last many quarters, margins have continuously gone up. Margins have now gone from 9% to 33%.

If you look at, the strength of the company in terms of the capital strength, we've now got ₹1,244 crore of cash reserves. Last year, we added a cash balance of approximately ₹300 crore based on, profitable growth.

As you can see, the return on equity is getting better and better. If we look at, the real growth for from on on on on various other metrics, EPS is up 86% over the last three years, CAGR this is.

The earnings per share now is actually ₹47 a share. If you also look at the profit after tax has jumped to ₹244 crore.

It's among India's most profitable listed digital platforms. If we go to the next slide and look at the consolidated accounts, which is slide four, as you can see here, revenue growth is 22% for the year, 20% operating growth for the quarter.

EBITDA growth is 70% for the year. Margins are 33% for the year.

For the quarter, margins are 35%, and EBITDA is up 55%. If we look at profit after tax is up 54% and first time cross ₹70 crore, ₹70.84 crore in a quarter.

So 54% up PAT, and PAT for the year has jumped from ₹145 crore to ₹243 crore, which is up by 68% for the year. It's been a very, very strong yearly performance.

We obviously feel very optimistic about not only the year gone by, but we also feel very, very optimistic about the years, going ahead. We feel our competitive dynamics have improved for the company.

Overall customer engagement has improved. As you can see here, revenues have improved and margins have improved, and obviously profitability has dramatically gone up as well.

We feel very strong and and in a good position to really guide the future of this company. If we go to slide five, which is the consumer group, as BikeWale, CarWale, these brands, it has had a really, really strong year at a growth of 30%.

Not only has it grown revenue at 30% for the year, it's grown EBITDA by 96% and profit after tax at 55% due to increase in the deferred tax provisions of the company. If we look at the quarter, quarter revenue is up 25%, EBITDA is up 72%, and pre profit after tax is up 64%.

It's been a really strong quarter for the consumer group as well. If we look at the remarketing business, and I want to highlight here that in the year this year gone by, every company of ours, all the three businesses have achieved the highest ever revenue, the highest ever margins, and the highest ever profits, all of them.

It's been a really, really strong, year for us gone by. If you look at the remarketing group, it's up 22% on yearly revenues.

Profits EBITDA is up 57%, margin has jumped to 28%, and profit after tax is up 66%. If you look at for the quarter, revenue is up again 22%, EBITDA is up 56%, and profit after tax is up 42%.

It's been, as I said, again a very strong quarter for the remarketing business as well. If you look at OLX India, for the year, revenue is up, total income is up 22%, EBITDA is up 54%, and profits up 77%.

For the quarter, it's 16%, EBITDA 34%, and profit after tax 44%. They've had a strong year as well.

These are high-level financial metrics which I wanted to share with all of you. Obviously, I'm happy to take all your questions and share, and clarify all the doubts you might have as well.

We can take questions now.

Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity.

Congrats, sir, on a good set of numbers. Sir, first question is on the classified business.

We have taken quite a few initiatives in the last few quarters and have rolled out new products as well on both elite buyer as well as verification. The growth momentum seems to be taking longer to sort of see an acceleration.

If you can share some more color on where are we in terms of monetization, how is the response for some of these products which we have launched, and how should we expect the growth to be for the next few years?

Sure. I think you mean in the OLX business.

OLX has grown by 16% in the quarter. Verification was launched in the last few weeks of the quarter.

Verification and Elite Buyer has been around for a few months. The adoption of both these products has been extremely strong.

I think you'll very soon, maybe this quarter, start seeing the impact of it because, in fact, it's been in almost very rarely in platforms like these are buyers monetized. We've actually had I would say a strong success in both the products, verification and Elite Buyer.

Like I said, you'll start seeing the numbers play out immediately, in my opinion. We can already see it on a daily basis.

I think from this quarter onwards, you'll start seeing the impact of these products. When you look at OLX as a whole, we feel very optimistic about the monetization opportunities within OLX.

Last quarter, we launched a couple of other AI initiatives as well in OLX. As we go on this year, there'll be a series of launches of new products.

We feel very, very confident about Elite Buyer, verification, and other B2C and C2C initiatives being done by the company. I think you should see this momentum of monetization step up now immediately.

You should see it. Sir,

any more products? Can you sort of elaborate what are we planning to do for the coming years, which you said that we should see a pick up?

Sure. First within Elite Buyer itself, Elite Buyer is a suite of products for us, right?

We started off with visibility, bringing in trust with Elite Buyer. We're moving to agentic AI with Elite Buyer.

It's got a very unique matchmaking tool which has gone live. If you are looking to buy a product, it helps you find that product and matchmakes it to exactly what you want, which enables you to do transactions.

It's of course using what we call a matchmaking agent, which has been built ground up. It is moving also, as we disclosed earlier presentations, to various other agents, which suppose you're buying any used product, it'll help you price it.

If you don't know what price to pay, it'll instantly tell you what price you should pay for it. In many products, it'll also give you a condition check.

What we're able to do today with photographic image recognition, we're able to judge condition. I think what we're trying to do is when you buy a product, the Elite Buyer program with multiple agents now, which will get launched and you'll, as I said, you'll see them one after the other, as consumers to use, you will be able to buy a used product by understanding how to find and matchmake a product, a seller, understand the price, understand the condition.

That's one family of initiatives. There's another family of initiatives that if you're looking to sell your product.

This is also got rolled out. There's a matchmaking on that side, too.

If you're looking to sell a car or a bike or a refrigerator or something, how do we instantly give you a customer waiting for this product, right? That also requires a matchmaking agent, which has been built.

Also when you're looking to sell your product, do you understand price? Are you able to negotiate price?

There's pricing agent, negotiation agents on the other side as well. These are various AI initiatives which are using OLX core proprietary data to give you a better experience.

These are at various stages of rollout. The matchmaking in a very small way is already rolled out to consumers on OLX.

As I said, these are all at various stages of this launch. There's also a verification product which you've talked about which brings further trust and safety in a platform like this.

It tells you who can be trusted or not who can be trusted, actually, at this point. It also comes from the fact that a very large number of OLX users are more than five years old.

From their behavior, we're able to analyze intelligently who can be trusted or not who can be trusted, actually, at this point. That's another family.

We've talked about building fintech, and we are at various stages of development of building a financing product for people who want to buy used products. Then there are multiple such initiatives.

The intent is to keep building products which help transactions on the platform and obviously help us monetize in a far better manner, sir.

Understood, sir. Lastly, sir, on the consumer business, good performance here as well.

Can you just elaborate a bit more on the OE/dealer mix, how has it changed in the quarter? In terms of outlook, given some of this rising steep cost pressures we are seeing across the industry, how do you see the growth going from here for the next year?

Do you see any risk of deceleration, or do you think this growth momentum can continue for you? Some thoughts there.

One is that the car industry in the last seven months has had steep growth, including April as well. As that the car industry grew by approximately 20% in April itself.

We feel very optimistic about the year ahead for growth for the consumer business. Any growth rate which we've already shown last year, the year before, or the year before that, we obviously feel very optimistic about the next year or the years ahead as well.

We also feel reasonably optimistic about the car industry itself that there should be some growth momentum just looking with the GST tax reduction and demand escalation, which has taken place post that. We continue to see that.

We completely feel very optimistic about the growth in the car industry, or the bike industry for that matter, for the next year or two, three years ahead, actually. Nothing has changed.

We feel as optimistic as we did three months ago or five months ago. Market conditions in the car industry are quite favorable, or the two-wheeler industry, for businesses like ours.

Aneesha, you want to give the breakup of this dealer and OEM? I don't think much has changed, but you want to give a breakup?

Sure, Vinay. About 70/30, OEM being 70 and dealer being 30 of our revenue.

In

consumer group, CarWale/BikeWale.

Yeah. Okay.

Sure. Thank you.

I will come back in the queue.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi. Thank you.

Hi, Vinay.

Hi.

My question is on Super Dost. First off, good to see a unified C2B product.

Do you need to spend on advertising and promotions to popularize Super

Dost? Super Dost is already launched.

It is in the initial phase launched for all the dealers in India. As OLX and CarWale has almost all used car dealers in India listing or buying vehicles from the platform.

What it does today, which is already live, if you're a dealer looking to sell a car

and

the dealer can just take a photograph of a car they want to sell, and it instantly matchmakes customers around in a local environment which can buy that car. It is basically something we promised in an earnings call earlier as well.

It's something called instant sale, right, which basically uses AI to align customers to a particular kind of car and does it instantly, so that if a dealer keeps inventory for 60, 90 days, how do you bring that inventory down to five days, right, of stock? Because it gives you customers immediately.

I think it's been very well-received. It's just been launched about 30, 30-odd days ago, it has done extremely well and very well-received.

It's early days yet. We're using AI in that form.

Super Dost will get more functionality as we go on for dealers. There's a consumer version of that which I talked about in the previous question, which is really this is matchmaking, actually.

Pricing and condition check will come with matchmaking, and it'll come to consumers, too. Super Dost for consumers will get launched very soon, where they can instantly do the same as dealers can.

If somebody, you and me, looking to buy a car, you'll get a feature like this available to you with the Elite Buyer program.

Understood. Vinay, essentially right now from what I can understand, this works on WhatsApp.

The idea being a dealer

gets onto WhatsApp, or a consumer gets onto WhatsApp, and they put those messages

and

get those matches, right? To what you are mentioning, it seems like you would build this out into a full-fledged platform.

I also see on It won't be on an independent platform. It's rendered on WhatsApp.

The underlying technology is WhatsApp is the communication or the tool at this point. You could put a photo on WhatsApp, and it'll instantly give you three customers.

The backend technology is being built at OLX and CarTrade, right? It can be rendered across on any platform.

It'll go live on OLX. It could go live on CarWale.

It could go live on any platform we have to render it. We just started WhatsApp because that's been very convenient for consumers and dealers, but then go across all our platforms.

Understood. Then in that presentation, you mentioned that there are 2 million-plus buyers and sellers.

Is this the count of people who have already engaged with or messaged Super Dost as of now? Is that how one should

No. 2 million buyers and sellers are people who come every month to buy or sell cars on OLX or CarWale.

Only used. This is not new.

It's a significant scale every month. This is not one-off.

This is every month. Yeah.

I see. Okay.

Right. Sorry, just to get back to that question.

Do

you think you would need to kind of promote Super Dost as is, kind of

No, you don't need to, actually, because as we have almost 31 million people on OLX every month, and 50-odd million on CarWale, BikeWale. It will be available to the 80 million people.

It's right now available for dealers for cars. It is also, by the way, a version of it, matchmaking, will be available for all our products on OLX, not just cars.

That'll go live soon. It started at cars, but it's going to go to even if you're buying a refrigerator, it would apply the same way.

It goes across everything.

Understood. Then just imagining that people use this for cars, for refrigerators, everything,

and then

if they're engaging with this on these different platforms, the proposition here is not that people can hold an account on Super Dost separately as such. That's not the proposition.

No, you actually have to buy something on OLX to get onto Super

Dost.

Even today, that is the case.

Super

Dost is a brand of a tool which assists you. You have to buy something on OLX to give access to that anyway.

If you are an OLX Elite Buyer, you might get access. You have to buy something on OLX to get even today, by the way, to get access to Super

Dost.

It's not a free product, yeah. Understood.

Okay. Understood.

My next question is on the remarketing business. There are two components to it, right?

One is, of course, the institutional sellers, the corporate sellers, where you can have these macro-cyclical-driven growth momentum, and the other is obviously the retail one. Any broad sense you can give me on what is the underlying growth that you think you can sustain in the retail segment?

I'm not necessarily asking for the next quarter, but maybe just to kind of visualize and help understand how much of that cyclicality has been blunted by retail from an ongoing basis.

Sure. I think first thing is the institutional is not cyclical.

I think there was a period for about a year in between post-COVID where repossession dropped because loans were not given at COVID time. That was a one-off.

It is not a cyclic where it goes up and down every quarter or every year. That's the first correction.

Even the institutional business is not necessarily cyclical. I actually think both the repossession side and the retail side will keep growing is our view, right?

The retail side is of course small dealers, or owners coming and buying or selling vehicles. The institutional side is just bulk inventory coming in bulk.

That's the difference. We see actually strong momentum of growth in both areas, to be honest.

We don't see, yeah, any reason not to believe that for the next few years ahead. Like I said, as long as new loans are being given in India, which is happening, for any automotive product, I think you're going to have repossession, right?

It was just a period in COVID for about a year and a half when that did not happen.

Understood. May I have one last question from my side?

Any

thoughts on acquiring the Auto Mall business 100%? I know it's

No, not at this point. Nothing I can comment on.

No, I don't think so. I think for us the partners we've got there are fantastic partners to have.

I think we've nothing to update on it or nothing to say on it at this point, no. Having them obviously is a huge, huge advantage for the company and for us.

I see.

Okay. Understood.

Got it. Thank you so much.

Those were my questions.

Thank you. Thanks, Vijit.

Hi. Hi, Vinay.

Hi, Aneesha. Congrats on very good set of numbers again.

Just two questions from my side. On OLX, this initiative of Elite Buyer, Elite Seller is doing well and you have now introduced Super Dost.

Just wanted to understand in OLX, can you share some breakdown in terms of revenues coming from advertisement and subscription as in used car dealer taking a subscription, right, and advertisement, versus from these new initiatives like Elite Buyer, Elite Seller, or Super Dost, where buyer and seller needs to pay, right, because this could become a much bigger opportunity? My second question is on remarketing.

Just wanted to understand what would be the broad mix now on repossessed and retail segment. If you can throw some light on remarketing in terms of which segment is witnessing stronger growth compared to others, right, in terms of retail or repossessed or anything, right?

If you can also add, apart from take rate, right, we do offer some value-added activities in remarketing, what would be the share of revenues coming from that value-added activities, and is it on the rising trend?

Sure. I think the first part is whether it's Elite Buyer, verification, what part of revenue is it, and what is the traditional revenue.

The traditional revenue is pretty much most of it. It's very insignificant at this point, the Elite Buyer.

It's really kicked off in the last two, three months, it's very insignificant in the last year. One thing is going to change is that from this year, I feel in the next few quarters, you will see Elite Buyer and verification becoming significant for the company.

We're very optimistic about definitely Elite Buyer in terms of monetization in the very near term. You'll start seeing that significant.

It would be when I say insignificant, probably, Aneesha, correct me, probably less than 5% last year for sure. It's going to become significant, in our opinion, this year, which you'll start seeing maybe from this quarter or the next quarter.

We can already see that trend, as I said, in the last month or so. That's one.

The second question is around what are the new segments apart from repossession or retail in Shriram Automall? We feel really optimistic about commercial vehicles, for example, where we feel we're right now working closely with an OEM on trade-in for all their commercial vehicles, right?

If you want to buy a new commercial vehicle and you want to trade in your old one, we're building a partnership and a product with one OEM right now where the vehicles can go back to Shriram Automall for auction, right, all the trade-in vehicles. There are multiple such initiatives on commercial vehicle side.

I also feel very optimistic about the farm equipment side, apart from repossession, retail, and all the other things we do. These are some of the initiatives on new supply sources we are building.

I think the third question was around what is the value-added service income versus the auction income. The value-added service and the auction income here are correlated, right, in a way.

Because if you have a buyer fees or buyer management fees or you have some small clients paying a little bit of parking fees, they're very correlated with the auction revenue. I would really say these are all correlated with each other.

Very large percentage of these fees are auction-related in a way because they're all bunched together. I think the one area of fees which is slightly outside, which is about 10% or less, is the inspection fees.

Otherwise, all these other are very auction-related by itself. Yeah.

Thanks for answering, Vinay. Vinay, my thought process to understand on remarketing was, like I asked from the OLX side, is the share of value-added revenue in remarketing going up, right, because there is always a limit to how much take rate can you take from consumers, right?

And

I think the growth in it comes from two different places. If you're talking about take rate, if we answer this slightly differently, where if the take rate was to grow, for example, one of the initiatives we're thinking about is financing dealers who buy on our platform, right, not ourselves, again, a marketplace model.

Thousands of people buy vehicles every month. In fact, our transaction turnover is almost ₹4,000-₹5,000 crore.

Is the question that can you finance some of those? That could be value-added financing.

We think value-added is not the core auction fees or related. We think value-added is completely a new line of fees, right?

Those are the kind of fees we'd work on. Inspection is completely a new fees which I've told you,

which

is about 10% or so. We think value-added is not related directly to an auction of a vehicle.

It's something people need when they auction a vehicle, buying or selling. We actually think financing is one area.

Marketplace financing is something we're looking at very closely there to increase our margins, yeah, absolutely. That's the reason I'm asking.

What I was also trying to understand was, like you mentioned, inspection is 10% of revenues, right? Similarly, are there any other big value-added activity that has already started contributing to revenues apart from our take rate and parking fees?

No, I wouldn't say anything significant at this point, no. It's mostly auction fees.

Okay. One question on OLX side again, in terms of follow-up, right?

When you talk about that active buyer and seller will become significant, right? Let's not talk in quarters, one, two, three quarters, right?

Let's say three years' time, right? In three years' time, where do you see this segment?

Matlab, can it contribute a 30%-40% of OLX revenue?

It could be. No, no.

It could be more than that, I would say. It could be more than that.

I actually think because

just remember one data point which is very important is that there are six times buyers to sellers on the platform, which is obvious. If someone is selling, there are many buyers, right?

The bulk of the users in this platform come to buy, right? On a daily basis.

The monetization opportunity is multiple fold there. Multiple fold, I would say, yeah.

Which is why it's such a significant initiative for the company.

Okay. Sorry just to harp on it, and maybe if I can just ask one more follow-up.

Obviously, this Elite Buyer can become really big for you in the next three years. The traditional channel in terms of advertising or in terms of the subscription fees that you charge from used car dealers, that will be more linked to inflation or whatever annual increase that you ask them?

No, no.

I actually think there's so many new products for sellers which are being built today and the seller base is growing, it is to me there is no inflation or any growth rate which you could apply. It can be completely disproportionate in the years ahead the way the product is being created.

I don't want to give a guidance anyway, but I would not think that this is going to be inflation. We're just way too early in the day to look at the number of seller products or buyer products being created right now that, like I said, the growth could be any percentage.

There's just no limit.

Thanks, Vinay. All the best for the future.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, Vinay and team. Congratulations on a decent set of results.

I had two questions, both on OLX. The first is, obviously, I think you have explained already that there are some initiatives which will work out well in the near future.

I just wanted to understand what happened this quarter, right? Because you had guided very clearly about there being higher momentum in the coming quarter when we were discussing the same results last quarter.

Why did it drop from 18-odd percent growth to 15.5% this quarter? What happened?

No, I don't think I think it is pretty similar. Not that it matters, but this quarter is two days less.

Some of the online platform, it does matter.

That is not significant.

Yeah. No, no.

Y-o-Y, it's anyway grown 16%, right? That's one.

I think I think it is normally Q3 for us is slightly better quarter. It's just the October phase of consumer products in India.

Generally, honestly, Sachin, we it's not much difference, and we feel pretty similar to what we felt the previous quarter. Some of the initiatives like verification

has launched two two

months late, launched two months late, for full month. We are talking about Y-o-Y anyway.

No,

the reason why I'm pushing on this, Vinay, is OLX obviously has had a checkered track record.

Finally,

in the last couple of quarters, we noticed that, yeah, we are seeing some momentum pick up, and which is what you highlighted in the last earning call as well. Again, Y-o-Y growth has dipped, which is why I'm asking, right?

Is it a sign of something falling apart for us, or

all this

very easily explainable is my question.

No, no. I actually feel the other way around.

I feel I'm more optimistic than I was last quarter. In my opinion, it's the other way around, I think.

Like I said, we did launch verification about 45 days later than we thought. It is completely new product, and we wanted to go out with it completely done.

A lot of these things sometimes in product development may take a little longer. We feel extremely optimistic as we did the previous quarter.

Nothing has changed for us at OLX.

Understood. Just one more question on OLX only and which is on the employee cost side,

right?

There is a lot more variability in OLX employee cost compared to what we see in new auto, for example, or on the consumer group. Is there a significant portion of our employee workforce here which is slightly more variable that revenue goes up, it goes up, revenue goes down, it goes down, compared to most of our other businesses where it's largely fixed sort of employee base?

Sure.

No, employee base is absolutely same. In fact, the employee cost year on year is up 4%.

No, I'm just talking about quarterly, right? I do understand that there will be appraisals in one quarter

and all that.

Every quarter, it seems to be moving up ₹1-₹2 crore on a ₹19 crore base, seems a decent sort of movement. Last year, we didn't have that much variability.

No, it's up for the whole year 4%, right? No, if you see here, employee cost for the year is up 4%.

It's ₹73 crore to ₹75 crore. The movement, it could be in a provisioning, but the other way to answer the question is the cost of people or the kind of people are very similar to other businesses, especially CarWale.

We also don't see much change in employee cost next year, if that's the question, that I can give you guidance on. It's last year

gone

up. No, there isn't.

In fact, here the variable is the least. In the group, it would be the least variable people.

The variable would be the least in OLX because it's a very online tech-driven business, it'd be the least. Yeah.

The way I would think of almost is yeah, if you look at the cost growth of OLX is actually 1% for the year, and 4% in employee costs, yeah. It's not different.

In fact, like I said, it's even less variable than in other companies. I think that's one of the reasons margins are also up, right?

If you see the margins are up year-on-year, margins have gone from 23% to 31%. I think that also shows.

No, that's fair. The rise in employee cost is not a concern.

I was just trying to understand if there is a significantly more variable component in employee cost. Understood.

Got it. Sure.

Thanks so much. That's what I was saying.

Cost growth is not a concern. I was just trying to understand the nature of the cost.

Fair. Right.

Thank you.

Yeah. Thanks for taking my question.

Really,

the last fiscal year and even going into FY '27, the business momentum is very strong. I just wanted to kind of ask more from a, let's say, medium-term perspective.

Obviously, the big elephant in the room is AI. I appreciate all these efforts and initiatives that you've taken to embed AI into our business.

From a more, let's say, larger-picture perspective, how do you view the risk of ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini kind of the traffic shifting from Google to these platforms and thereby circumventing the traffic that comes onto our platform? Thank you.

Yeah. The first part is we are 95% organic, right, so as a company.

For example, OLX, almost all its traffic comes on an app directly. It's 100% of its traffic actually is organic.

You have to remember that when you look at the opportunity ahead for us, the first thing is people come to our platform because of the brand and the trust in those brands. The second is because there is differentiated IP and platform experience.

Buying a used car on OLX or finding a used car on OLX or finding the price for the car you need to buy is almost impossible in any third-party platform, horizontal or vertical. A lot of our data sits behind, which is not publicly available.

The underlying data, whether it is customer data, vehicle data, other data which we have, sits behind which obviously LLMs and others cannot access. Therefore, the fact that the brand, trust, the IP of technology, platform services, as well as the data is proprietary makes AI for us a massive opportunity.

That is why when you're looking to sell your car, we can in one second match three customers right for you in your locality because of the data we carry. We're able to matchmake and understand the car you're selling, what price people should pay, what the condition of the car might be through all the data we carry, and then how do we give you three customers that suit you or 10 customers that suit you.

To me, AI is a massive opportunity. What we're doing this year is building a series of agents, matchmaking agents, pricing negotiation agents, condition-checking agents.

Tomorrow, it'll be listing agents, buying agents, loan agents, which will use all our proprietary data and technology and make the consumer experience in these platforms even better than what it is today. For us, it's a massive, massive opportunity for the next few months, few years ahead as well.

We just see is a massive, massive benefit for the company going ahead.

Got it. I appreciate that on remarketing and OLX, and used-car platform, it's difficult.

On the consumer side, how are you viewing the potential risk of the people using agents and kind of directly dealing with dealers and not coming onto your platform?

Yeah. The two parts here, right?

First is when you're looking to buy a car, it's a ₹12 lakh car. It's not like booking an airplane ticket for ₹20,000, right?

It's not commoditized. You're looking to buy a car, the process may take 30 to 60 days depending what your sense of urgency is.

You're going to do a deep amount of work to buy that car. I think when you see Google AI Mode or anything come out, search has gone up, but the relevance for platforms like ours has gone up even more.

Our traffic has gone up as search has gone up, in fact, during this phase of the last 18 months as well, as you can see the numbers always. Our traffic has continuously gone up in this phase, number one.

Number two is a lot of the data we carry on platforms like CarWale or BikeWale are proprietary to us and to our users. It's not available on third-party platforms at this point, right, or are not likely to be available.

Number three, the integration we have with OEMs and dealers, for example, if you want to know the exact price or the discount on the car, or you want to get a loan immediately approved, or you want to get a trade-in price for your car, these are not accessible to third-party horizontal platforms, right? There's enough differentiated data, enough differentiated depth of experience which makes us feel very optimistic, obviously, of greater use of platforms like ours, right?

That's exactly what is happening. As you use Google AI Mode, which is probably the larger-used platform in the country, you come to CarWale even more because it may answer one question, but when you buy a car, you want more than one answer.

You want to go through a series of immersive experiences to really decide what you want to do with it, and then where you want to buy it from, and what price you want to pay. We feel, actually, this is actually worked heavily in our favor in the last 16 to 18 months.

Got it. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hey, hi. Thank you for the opportunity.

I had two questions. First was on the lines of quality of dealer leads.

Are there any measures that we are planning to take or have taken to improve the quality of dealer leads in the consumer business? Additionally, anything on the pricing side for the leads, any sense on the value proposition that you are hearing from dealers?

No, not really. This is a continuous effort of the company every day to work closely with dealers to improve conversion ratios, right, whether conversion ratio involves improvements in our platform or improvements in dealer follow-up and closing.

It's a permanent exercise which has been going on for years and years. We continue to do that.

We obviously have lots of metrics in place to track this and measure this. This is a absolutely important initiative for the company, and we keep doing this every single day.

What was the second question, sorry? It was around leads, and what was the second question?

Pricing. The pricing is pretty static.

We mostly focus on volume increases and depth of the impact to make with the dealer. There are price increases, but they're more inflationary in nature.

The bulk of the growth comes from higher relevance and volume. Basically just want to get a feedback on the pricing.

Okay. One more question on the AI aspect.

Is there any change in discussions that you're having with OEMs basically that from the onset of AI, is there any change in the discussions or the tone of OEMs regarding their marketing expenses being diverted towards you?

There is a lot of initiative from our side and with OEMs, too, on how we can improve the experience using AI for consumers which come on our platform, right? Can we have agents which gives us more data from an OEM which helps a customer buy?

Can we have agents which integrate the consumer, us, and the OEM, and the bank even closer? There are every day discussions on how we can improve experience for our users on our platform, with the help of the OEM, sometimes on our own, sometimes with banks helps, with all our partners, actually.

It's a very central conversation across all our companies to improve consumer experience on the platform or enhance it with multiple AI tools, and that also involves integrating deeper with banks and OEMs and dealers.

Understood. Last question.

Just on the traffic on the websites. Across the websites, was there any dip or any seasonality that you saw in this quarter, maybe an increase in the volume or a decrease?

We saw traffic grow over last year, actually, in this quarter. Y-o-Y growth Normally post-Q3 traffic is Q3 is the highest in traffic for the year always.

Slight decrease from Q3, but Y-o-Y we saw traffic increases, actually.

Okay. Got it.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Thank you for taking my question. Am I audible?

Yes, we can hear you.

My question is again on OLX. Sorry for harping on this again.

Just want to understand monetization a bit better. If you just could give me some metrics as to how much revenue is from consumers, how much is from dealers, and currently do we only monetize dealers currently, or

I

understand we launched new products like verification, Elite Buyer, consumers are also being monetized. Just over a medium two- to three-year period, you said the new verticals could give you 30% to 40% of the revenues, right?

Just want to get more understanding on what drivers you have, what products. Yeah.

Sure. We've got two basic sets of customers, the sellers and the buyers, right?

In sellers, there are consumers and their dealers. We monetize both today.

Sellers like you and me can also come for free. Many times, sellers like you and me come and pay for more visibility or other services.

I think the first time for a lot of consumers who come and list a car or any other product, it's free, but the second time it's chargeable. Many people come multiple times, and therefore we charge consumer sellers even today.

We charge dealers at all times when they sell, right, for selling. The Elite Buyer program is aimed at charging for consumers and dealers for buying services, right?

As a consumer, if you come to buy today, it's completely free unless you use an Elite Buyer service. The Elite Buyer service is superior to obviously buying without the service.

That product is getting better and better every day. That's another monetization tool.

Verification is really for consumers like you and me again. There are dealer initiatives and consumer initiatives across all these spectrum of activities.

At this point, the consumer listing business, which is people like you and me selling a product, the revenue is quite high, actually, from that business. As we go on, we think even the Elite Buyer program primarily right now is monetizing consumers like you and me more than dealers at this point.

We actually think the consumer side of monetization, buyers or sellers, will become a large part of the company. Even within that, consumer buyers, which is the largest population of people on the platform, is going to become extremely significant in this year and probably very large in the next two to three years.

Got it, sir. Secondly on margins, for the consumer platform, I think for the full year, we did, I think, 38% EBITDA margins,

and

OLX, we did around 31%. Do you see this trend continue?

For the consumer business, I would say we are at a pretty high 38% margin. Do you see this still

expand? For

OLX, do you see this converging? Yes, margins will Yeah, margins will expand this year.

Across all

Yeah, I think so. Margins across all businesses will expand.

I do see OLX is it's already close to consumer business, but it'll probably get there, if not go ahead even. I think margins across the businesses will go up in the current year.

Costs are likely to be quite stable. Also here, even if you look at a three-, four-, five-year how we think about the business, we have we we've got our profit after tax, as you as you've seen, is ₹243 crore this year.

We are pretty one of the goals we set ourselves is, to get to approximately ₹1,000 crore profit in the next four years or four to four, maybe five years, between four and five, which is 4x. We'll see margins shoot up in all these businesses as we head towards that ₹1,000 crore objective, in the next four to maybe five years.

That answers my question. Thank you so much, and all the best.

Hello. Am I audible?

Yes.

I had only one question. This was about your ROE.

Your EBITDA has already gone up to 33%. Margins are looking healthy.

Still the ROE is very low at 10%, which is below the cost of capital.

The major reason for the ROE being at 10 is because the cash in the company, yeah. The business ROE is much higher, as you know.

The business ROE is much

higher.

I feel like in due course, whether it is returning money to shareholders or other modes, is something we will consider. I think at this point, the current regulation, because of our tax shelters and carry-forward losses, prevents us from doing that.

You're right. I think the ROE is at 10% because of the cash balance.

If the cash balance didn't exist, the ROE would be very much, much higher, of course.

Yeah. When do you think that possibility would come in from your regulation?

Aneesha, you want to answer that question? I think maybe two to three years.

I think we've also got tax shelters that the company benefits from, but I think maybe two to three years, Aneesha. Is that correct?

Yes. Yes, Vinay.

Absolutely right.

Yeah.

Okay. You're not looking at any acquisition in the meantime or any other way of utilizing this cash, right?

No, there's nothing at this point to report on a prospective M&A or utilization of cash at this point. We obviously keep looking at M&A, but there's nothing at a level where we can at this point give feedback on or report.

All right. All right.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you so much, and congrats on a good set of numbers.

I just wanted to make sure one one aspect, whether we have any seasonality in our consumer business, which is CarWale/BikeWale, in the March quarter. Thank you.

There's always seasonality, actually not in the March quarter. There's a little bit of seasonality in the October to December quarter because of the festivities in India, right?

Typically Diwali, Dussehra, the automotive market tends to be far more buoyant, a lot more launches, a lot more going on. There's a little bit of uptick which is higher then.

Then, the other tends to be quite even, actually, after that. It's only the one quarter which tends to be slightly different.

Understood. Just on your comments on OLX, you mentioned the elite programs, both buyer/seller, may contribute roughly 5% or maybe less.

Given the fact that you're seeing an immediate impact of these from Q1 onwards, is it a fair argument that the contribution may double in '27?

You mean contribute by

margins?

You mean margins? The revenue might double is your question?

Is that your question? Oh, yeah, yeah.

From elite, the elite's very small base, I don't think we should think of it doubling or tripling or anything because it's a base last year is very small. Revenue.

Yes, from elite only.

Okay. Fair enough.

A couple of data points, sir. If I may have the auction listings for this quarter and the auction volumes?

Aneesha, you want to give that?

Sure. The auction listings about 1.7 million, and volume will be about 3 lakhs.

3 lakhs. Okay.

Fair enough. Thank you, sir, and all the very best.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, sir. Am I audible?

Yes, we can hear you. Yeah.

Congratulations on the good set of results. Almost all of my questions have been answered.

I just wanted to reconfirm about the ROEs, because actually my line got disconnected. I just wanted to confirm that there are no acquisition plans or utilization plans in the near future, and we're looking at giving back to the shareholders after two or three years, right?

At this point, as I said, there is nothing which we can report on any M&A. Obviously, our attempt would be that if there's no utilization of cash, and we, of course, as last year we generated ₹300 crore of additional cash, we obviously believe that there'll be a significant cash generation for the next two to three years as well.

Obviously based on that, at that point, we'll have to take an appropriate decision whether there is an M&A in play or the natural thing would be to, when possible, return money back to shareholders, of course.

Got it. Sir, next question was again on OLX, just a follow-up question on one of the previous questions that was asked.

I just wanted to understand that

I think, guys, this is an important question because one of the things which it's very evident also is that EPS has gone to ₹47 a share. I think one should keep in mind that there's a significant cash generation in the company, and obviously profit creation pooled in the company, just further to your return money question.

Right. Exactly, that was the main thing.

That is why I asked the question, because a lot of cash generation

and

ultimately, that is why ROE was depressed. Secondly, I wanted to ask again on the OLX side that we have taken a lot of initiatives in the last few quarters and shouldn't we have seen a quarter-on-quarter growth as well, because we were very optimistic in the Q3 concall as well?

I just want to understand is there a seasonality, because

There is. Like I said earlier in the call, in October, November, there tends to be some seasonality in any buying, right, whether it's a new car, used car, etc., etc.

It tends to be heavier. We feel very optimistic about the growth, I'll be honest, and all the product creation and even the consumer traction to the platform.

We feel the next few quarters ahead, you'll start seeing the growth momentum dramatically changing.

Got it. That's it from my side.

Thank you so much, sir.

Thank you.

Hi, Vinay.

Hi, Arpit. How are you?

Yeah. I just wanted to understand the revenue aggregation, let's say, from the verification product and the Elite Buyer product.

What kind of revenues are we currently and what kind of growth are we seeing month on month since we launched it in Feb and March? Can it add up, let's say, ₹5-₹10 crore of revenues every month?

Do you think that is possible, or is already happening in the month of April? Just wanted to understand that bit.

As I said, growth is impossible to say because it's very early. It's obviously rapidly growing, but it's impossible to give a growth rate.

Very strong. I would say both on Elite Buyer and verification, the early trends are really strong.

As I said, right now the revenue is just insignificant. I think we'll all have to wait out, maybe this quarter to actually be able to give you some stable answer to the question.

Like I said, the early signs are very, very strong. That I can put it this way.

Like I said, this year it will be significant to the company. It will be significant.

Last year, it was not significant because it is launched very late. In the next year, you'll find it significant.

I think in the years ahead, we also can give guidance that it will be probably one of our largest sources of revenue. No, no, I wanted to understand what are the early trends that you are seeing right now, because you just launched Feb and March.

How strong is the consumer traction? Just wanted to understand that.

Got it. Given the acceleration in revenues from the newer products

and

consumer business still growing very strong, do you think ₹350 crore is conservative PAT estimate, according to you?

Sorry? Just repeat the last part of the question.

₹350 crore PAT is a conservative estimate, according to you, for FY '27?

₹350-₹360

crore.

I don't want to comment and give you a guidance. We did tell you that our goal, of course, is to get from the ₹243 crore last year to about ₹1,000 crore of profit in about four years or five years.

That's the line we're drawing. We don't want to give a year-by-year guidance.

We have told you was the next, within four, maybe five years, we want to get to this ₹1,000 crore number, which is a little more than 4x today, right?

Got it. The kind of momentum that you are seeing in the new products, you think the OLX revenue can start stepping up from here on?

Because what we saw last quarter was about 18%. You think this number can start crossing 30%-40% once this product start monetizing?

We believe that. Absolutely right.

Absolutely, we believe that. You're right.

That's correct.

Arpit,

I don't give a guidance. Obviously we believe the growth rate will be stronger than what it is today.

We believe that.

Are you seeing that earlier trends in April?

I don't want to give a guidance for this quarter either. Yeah.

As

I said, it's only one month over. We definitely see April better than obviously some of the other months because new products have also got launched.

It's early days. I don't want to give a guidance for this quarter or this year.

I've given you a four- to five-year profit objective of the company and the whole group as a whole. We've definitely given also a guidance that we feel very optimistic about monetization and consumer traction at OLX, both.

I just wanted to understand what you're seeing already. I don't want a guidance.

What you're seeing in

Hi, Vinay. This is Amit Jeswani here.

Hi. How are you?

Hi. Would that be right that for us to go 4x in profit, our revenues will have to go 3x?

By that point of time, OLX, which is a ₹200 crore product, will become like a ₹1,000 crore kind of product, like a 5-6x kind of That's the path of growth.

I don't want to give a revenue guidance, Amit. Yeah.

Oh,

let me continue.

I think it'll come across all our three platforms, to be honest. We feel optimistic about all three.

I don't want to give you a revenue guidance whether it's 3x or 2x or 4x. I feel our margin structure is strong.

Therefore, we feel optimistic that in all the work we do that normally when we add a rupee of revenue, very large part goes to profit, which continues, right? They're already best-in-class, and get even better in the three, four years ahead, which will contribute to getting us to this longer-term goal of the company.

This is where we're at. We're in this journey at this point.

I don't want to give a further guidance on revenue. Generally we feel good about the fact that there's enough opportunity and time in the company that we can aspire get to this goal what we've given to you today.

See, our stock price has fallen 40% odd only because of the AI. At this point of time, Vinay, you don't see AI as a risk, you see it as an opportunity for us?

Of course, we believe AI is a massive opportunity for the company. I think for us, because of just the brand, trust, technology, platforms, differentiated IP, data, meets a massive opportunity for the group across all its businesses, actually.

If AI is a risk, the first point

Thank you.

yeah, good afternoon to the team and thanks for taking my question. I have two questions.

Is over the last few quarters, we have observed that even when overall auto industry growth was relatively muted, the company advertising and platform revenues continue to grow strongly. However, with auto sales now recovering after GST-related benefits, advertising growth appears to have moderated slightly.

Is there any counter-cyclical behavior in this business model, or is this more related to changes in OEM marketing spend and campaign timing?

I think over the last many years, we've shown growths in the consumer business in CarWale, BikeWale across all times of markets, right? There were times when the market did not grow for 18 months and we grew at a rapid rate.

There are times when the market grew and we grew at a rapid rate. I like to think we are completely agnostic to beyond a level to new car growth or new bikes growth sales.

We benefit when car and bike sales grow. I think we're seeing that trend also in the last six months, which we've shown to you in both the quarters.

We also feel optimistic with the GST cut rate that the two-wheeler and the car market should have a reasonable headway to grow for the next one, two, three years ahead. It's become far more affordable for every consumer.

Naturally, we feel optimistic in this market situation where car sales, bike sales grow. We normally always grow, but even when they slow down, we grow.

It is always better than industry grows, and that growth for us is far more impactful, I would say. Also,

just wanted to confirm, is there any correlation between this GST cut sales and the regained momentum of power?

Sorry, are you saying the growth rate of the car industry is because of that? Is that the question?

Yeah.

It's not clear. The car industry growth rate has changed from the GST cut, though.

That is clear. That's from the October sales of new cars in India or new bikes in India.

The growth rate is obviously impactful because of the excellent decision to cut taxes on cars and bikes. It has had an impact in India, of course.

Okay. Sir, my second question is around the company has built a very large physical auction infrastructure across India.

How difficult is it for a new player to replicate this network today, and are you seeing any irrational pricing or aggressive competition in the auction business?

We carry, I think, almost 130 auction sites, right, where a lot of our customers park vehicles and then we do an online sale. I think in a country like India, the defensibility for us in that business, in our remarketing business, is multiple.

It is, of course, the physical infrastructure, it's impossible to recreate, but it's also the technology, the underlying IP and the platform. It's a buyer and seller, the network effects of buyers and sellers, thousands and thousands and millions of buyers and sellers across the platform.

It's many things which creates a defensibility. It is difficult to duplicate the physical infrastructure, but there are many more moats in that business.

Okay. Okay.

That's it from my side, sir, and thank you, and I wish all the best for the future.

Thank you.

Hi. Thank you for the opportunity.

Can you please provide the percentage of our revenue from advertisement in our consumer business?

It's insignificant. Less than I would say advertising less than, Aneesha, from normal Google advertising or third-party advertising, less than 5% would be?

Yes, Vinay.

Is it a fair understanding that in all our three segments, the revenue share from advertisement is almost insignificant, right?

No, no, no. That's not correct.

I said in Shriram Automall doesn't exist. In CarWale, it may be less than, as I said, very insignificant.

OLX also would be less than 10%. That is correct, yeah.

Okay. You already mentioned that you do not have any plans to use the cash to maybe acquire some other business.

Why is it so, because if I see all the three segments we operate in, we have acquired almost all the three businesses. Why the strategy has changed and do we not see any significant value in the market?

Just wanted to know the opinion.

What we said at this point, we do not have anything to report back on. It doesn't mean we're not looking at acquisitions, or we won't do acquisitions or anything of the sort.

We just said at this point there's no update to be given. I think we also have to remember that we're a company which has done M&A very successfully over the last many years.

We've had three major M&As, all have been extremely successful. We always continue to look out for M&A, right, which is strategic in nature, where the teams are good, where we feel there's synergy value, where we feel we can add value to our own customers.

These are things we do every day, it's part of our whole CarTrade Ventures initiatives. We're normally very picky and choosy, obviously valuations have to match, and many things have to match.

When we do come on to something, then we aggressively go after it, like in OLX. It's not like we're not looking or we don't look.

It's just that we haven't got something which we feel at this point we can close on. That's what the point is.

We're actively looking for M&A. Whenever we'll find opportunities, we will go about it.

Is that fair?

I don't want to say we actively or non-actively or looking or not. I just think that if something we do, we do well.

If something came around, we would definitely look at it if we felt it could add value to our customers or our shareholders, or there's some synergy value or strategic value. Of course, we would look at it.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. I would like to thank the management for taking the time out for the conference today, and also I would like to thank all the participants to join the call.

If you have any queries, feel free to contact us. We are MUFG Intime, Investor Relation Advisors to CarTrade Tech Limited.

Thank you.

Thank you, everybody. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.