Malaysia-based automotive marketplace Carsome generated revenue of $1.5 billion U.S. in 2022, selling more than 150,000 vehicles in the process, reports Forbes. The company also operates in Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore.
Carsome forecasts breakeven by year-end and full-year profitability in 2024, company co-founder and CEO Eric Cheng told the magazine.
“We are sacrificing the growth pace of two times every other year now to focus on our [profit] margin,” he said.
“That includes us being able to improve the take rate from every single transaction that’s happening on our platform through optimizing the pricing and workforce and being able to also utilize the marketing awareness we’ve built.”
He added that Carsome’s unit sales last year were equivalent to a 3% market share of Southeast Asia’s used-car ecommerce market.
Carro, Carsome’s main rival, sold 120,000 vehicles and earned revenue of more than $800 million during the 12 months to March 2023.
The margin of Carsome’s retail business, which was launched in 2020 and accounted for 35% of total revenue in 2022, reached 13% last year — double that of its core wholesale business — according to Cheng.
“What we want to achieve next year is to continue to keep up our growth trend, to capture more market share from that 3% to about 5% and then get closer to 10% in the following years but keep the company as profitable as we pursue all of these opportunities,” Cheng asserted.
Carsome is seeking new investment after raising $290 million in a Series E round last January.
