Opportunity for the Autopedia Car Marketplace Platform to Enter the GoTo Ecosystem

Recently, Garibaldi ‘Boy’ Thohir officially held a 10 percent stake in PT Tri Adi Bersama (Anteraja) worth IDR 70.55 billion. Now, Boy Thohir is again rumored to be buying 5-10 percent of the shares owned by PT Autopedia Sukses Lestari Tbk (IDX: ASLC).

Both Anteraja and Autopedia are subsidiaries of PT Adi Sarana Armada Tbk (IDX: ASSA). Meanwhile, Boy is listed as the President Commissioner of PT GoTo Gojek Tokopedia Tbk (IDX: GOTO) which has also just been officially listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX).

His acquisition of Anteraja’s shares automatically brought the logistics company into GoTo’s giant ecosystem. Of course, this corporate action will be in line with the hyperlocal strategy that is being promoted by GoTo.

Based on a public presentation some time ago, GoTo Co-founder and CEO Andre Soelistyo said that he would use the IPO funds to execute a hyperlocal strategy through three subsidiaries, namely Gojek (ride-hailing), Tokopedia (e-commerce), and GoTo Financial (fintech). . In the line of ride-hailing and e-commerce, logistics plays a very important role.

O2O Car Sales

If you look at its business model, Adi Sarana currently has a strong position in the automotive sector through three business pillars, namely JBA Indonesia, Caroline.id, and Cartalog.

JBA is a vehicle auction platform, both online and offline, supported by 34 offline auction networks throughout Indonesia. Most of them target B2B involving third party companies, namely financing and dealers.

Cartalog is an AI technology-based engine platform that provides price lists to all players in the automotive industry, especially used car sellers and buyers. Then, Caroline.id is a C2C and B2C marketplace that connects used car buyers and sellers at transparent prices.

Through this platform, sellers can send appraisals to appraise, list, and process cars for sale. In the B2C realm, Caroline.id competes with a number of players, such as Carro, OLX, and Carsome.

As of the third quarter of 2021, JBA Indonesia has auctioned 75,000 vehicles, more than 20,000 users, and more than 50,000 downloads on the Google Play Store. Caroline recorded transactions of more than 100 cars, and has 1,000 app downloads on the Play Store, while Cartalog still has 5,000 downloads.

Adi Sarana Armada Director Jany Candra said that he is currently focusing on strengthening digitalization in its three business pillars and improving the digital-based automotive ecosystem that is integrated with the latest technology. Autopedia is also aiming to become O2O for used cars through the Caroline and JBA brands.

“Currently, we are still focused on developing existing businesses and strengthening the company’s fundamentals by making digital-based technological innovations. However, we still have to see future business developments when we talk about the possibility of collaboration with platforms that have a large digital ecosystem,” he said.

The Car Marketplace Business Is Growing Rapidly

If it is true that it is included in the GoTo ecosystem, a quite possible scenario is to integrate Adi Sarana’s services into the Tokopedia platform, which has also penetrated into the sale of new and used cars. GoTo’s giant ecosystem allows Adi Sarana to expand its car sales channel.

One of Tokopedia’s ongoing collaborations is with Carro. Carro noted that the trend of contactless car purchases increased by 100% from month to month.

As of September 2020, three out of ten cars sold were contactless. In addition, the car marketplace platform can also be an alternative for Go-Car driver-partners who may need assistance in procuring a fleet.

As is known, platforms similar to Autopedia usually also cooperate with financing institutions for the purchase of used cars or trade-in activities. In Indonesia, the car marketplace business is developing well with the C2B2C business model.

Several platforms that have served this market include Carsome, Carro, Moladin, OLX Autos, to the most recent one is Broom. Apart from providing a platform, they also act to buy and sell used cars directly from/to customers.