South African internet major Naspers has launched Stradia.in, an online used car marketplace in India. Users can search for an option by brand, model, price, year, mileage and fuel type across all segments.
The move will further strengthen OLX’s position against its arch-nemesis Quikr. In August 2015, Quikr launched QuikrCars, its vertical with a focus on all kinds of automobiles, i.e. cars, bikes and commercial vehicles.
A development reported by VCCircle states that Stradia has been launched under Naspers’ online classifieds portal OLX. However no response was received from either parties, at the time of publishing this article.
The website is currently available in English and Hindi and has Android, iOS and Windows apps. As per the ‘Terms & Conditions’ on the website, the corporate entity for Stradia India is, OLX India BV with its offices at Taurusavenue, 2132 LS Hoofddorp, The Netherlands.
Sarabjit Sachdeva, former senior product and business manager at OLX, launched the Stradia under the OLX brand. His LinkedIn profile states, “Launched Mobile Apps (Android, iOS) & Responsive Website for OLX’s used Cars marketplace with Brand Name Stradia). [First highlighted by Medianama]
The automobile market in India is pegged at $125 Bn. Out of which, $100 Bn is the estimated share of automobile sale and remaining $25 Bn includes services. It is expected to grow at a rate of about 10% to a whopping $225 Bn by 2020.
Earlier in June 2016, Gurgaon-based online automobile marketplace, Droom, raised an undisclosed amount in its series B round of funding led by BEENEXT, a Singapore-based early stage technology fund and Digital Garage of Japan. Existing investors LightBox Ventures and Beenos also participated in this round. Other players in this segment include Carwale, Cardekho, Spinny, and Zoomo. Interestingly in September 2014, Sequoia Capital-backed Cardekho acquired Gaadi.com for about $11 Mn. Gaadi.com was owned by Naspers’ owned online travel group Ibibo Group.
