What is the next for cartrade after doubling?

Copyright © HT Digital Streams Limit all rights reserved. Partrade’s fast lane: Can this classified giant after doubling in a year retains its lead? Ananya Roy 5 min Read 02 Oct 2025, 09:00 AM IST Auto sales have been slow since the demand for urban demand for the rear seat withdrew. This increased sales of used cars, and consequently the fate of cartrade. (Lying photo: Mint) Summary OLX-powered scale, rising margins and a larger ecosystem fueled the Cartrade’s rally-but valuations raised difficult questions. Cartrade Tech, the company behind Carwale and Bikewale, has more than doubled wealth since the last Dussehra (11 October 2024–26 September 2025). Although the Nifty Auto index remained flat on sluggish small car sales, investors bet on using the used cars and its expansion outside the car segment. But competition and winds in the industry are huge. Can this rally sustain? Count of an end-to-end ecosystem patrade provides a complete ecosystem for car sales-of discovery and perpendicular to its consumer-directed portals, to monetization via merchant membership and value-added services. The company, founded in 2009, became a leader in the field of car research after purchasing Carwale and Bikewale in 2016. The purchase of Adroit Auto added large-scale inspection and valuation capabilities, which cemented reliable price discovery as a nuclear function. In 2018, Cartrade took a majority interest in Shriram Automall India Ltd (Samil) of Shriram Finance, bringing in a steady institutional fleet supply and loans. The platform now offers immediate loan approvals and insurance quotes at the completion, while the last kilometer inspection, certification and guarantee are absolutely supported by absolutely. Even in electric vehicles, Cartrade has built up an ecosystem that spans research, batterydiagnostics and cost-of-ownership equations. OLX’s acquisition of 2023 expanded the range in auto-advertising, while diversified into non-auto-vertical. Consumers, classified and re -marketing give each other Carwale, Bikewale and Cartrade anchor the company’s research platforms directed by the consumer. Combined with OLX’s classified business, Cartrade now attracts 75 million unique monthly visitors-95% organic, making the segment very margin accurate. Marketing platforms – Samil, Cartrade Exchange, Adroit Auto and Absure – make up 1.3–1.4 million annual auction lists, and go according to Q1FY26 numbers. Collectively, consumer, classified and re-marketing companies reinforce each other and capture greater consumer myth. Each vertical contributed almost £ 200 crore to the FY25 revenue, which amounted to £ 640. While consumers and advertising produce higher margins, the re -marketing ensures strong network effects. OLX put Cartrade in the fast lane. The August 2023 acquisition accelerated the leadership of Cartrade in the fast-growing used car market. Paid levels, premium lists and verified sellers have increased monetization, while Reach has expanded with 40 million new monthly unique visitors. The combined entity now has 150 million annual users and 75 million unique visitors. It has deepened the leadership of cartrade in auto-classifiers, while also increasing its non-auto categories to include electronics and real estate. Since the acquisition, OLX has also cast off its supplemental businesses, including inventory-heavy car transactions, which have dragged the profits. Thanks to its market leadership, 95% of traffic by OLX is also organic. Result? Cartrade’s turnover growth has accelerated without a proportional increase in the cost of obtaining customers. Its turnover growth has doubled up to 31%, while the operating lever contributed to a sharp expansion of its ebitda margin of about 9% in FY23 to 23.5% in FY25 -the first full fiscal since the OLX acquisition. Finally, OLX is present in more than 12 categories. This would help to help cartrade diversify advertising budgets about verticals, while also enabling cross -promotion and driving growth further. The industry is promising with the growing digitization and sees a tendency towards digital advertising. This is where OLX emerged as the market leader in used goods, especially in used cars where it has more than 60% market share. Business trends to electric vehicles and faster financing through Fintech should also help growth. At the same time, the physical presence of the business gives through more than 500 points of contact-Samil Yards and Absure Outlets-it is credibility for expansion in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities. Together with cross-sales opportunities by traders members and added services, including insurance, finance, logistics, price discovery and quality certification, the company is on track to further semen its leadership. The company also used AI to automate and improve the efficiency of its processes, including screening, fraud detection and customer care. Elara Capital projects OLX’s market share in used cars to reach 66.5% and that it generally used goods up to 38.8% by FY28. With most of these reached by organic traffic, the Ebitda margin is expected to expand by more than 7 percentage points to 30.6% over the next five years. In addition, the business model is stock -free and reduces the complications of working capital drags. The asset lights nature of the business and healthy internal accrual will ensure that the investments in expansion, technology and EV adjustments do not add much debt to the books. The operating winds can play swoosport car sales has been slow since the demand for urban demand for the rear seat. This increased sales of used cars, and consequently the fate of cartrade. But in the end, economic cyclicalness would bring the focus on fresh sales, and the demand for used cars could be moderate. The same goes for other Cartrade verticals, including electronics and real estate. Consumer segments, including advertising, also tend to be cyclical. Periods of great demand are usually accompanied by more visitors, and vice versa. The cyclical nature of the industry can lead to sharp variations in the margins of cartrade. Of course, the re -marketing of used goods and the physical footprint of the business can be hedged to some extent against the cyclicality. The competition also tightened. Players like Cars24, Spinny and Cardekho are fighting for auto-search leadership. Of course, Google trends OLX and Carwale put significantly in front of car search. Similarly, bikewal miles are far ahead of Bikedekho and zigwheels. This can be attributed to the grave created by Cartrade’s full spectrum ecosystem and consequent network effect, which was further entrenched by OLX’s larger user base. That said, more competition can lead to slower monetization, which affects growth as well as margins. Risks and Caveats Cartrade have no promoter ownership, its shareholder base is completely retail and institutional. While this can increase transparency and reduce conflicts of interest, the management payment will have to be investigated. Professional management can also tilt on short -term market pressure at the expense of long -term vision and innovation. Other risks include possible hiccups in OLX integration, poorer acceptance of absure and slower institutional re -marketing. Brokers are a target price of £ 3.590 – mostly 50% upside down from current levels. But after the rally since last October, the valuation of the share of 56x to 76x dragged earnings. With the price priced for perfection, any growth in growth or margins can weigh heavily. Read the profit for more such analyzes. Ananya Roy is the founder of Credibull Capital, a Sebi-registered investment adviser. X: @ananyaroycfa disclosure: The author does not hold shares of the businesses discussed. The opinions expressed are only for information purposes and should not be considered investment advice. Readers are encouraged to do their own research and consult a financial professional before making investment decisions. Catch all the business news, market news, news reports and latest news updates on Live Mint. Download the Mint News app to get daily market updates. More Topics #Cartrade Tech #Profit Pulse #Markets Premium #Cartrade Read next story