Online car marketplace banks on Cebu's tech savvy market

CEBU, Philippines - The growing internet usage in the Philippines has become an advantage to most online businesses as more people visit the web sphere to do transactions and perhaps buy the things they want.

A young executive of an online enterprise has seen the country's growing market potential specifically for cars, motorcycles and commercial vehicles, citing its rapid growth in the automotive industry.

German national Nicolas Boldt, the chief executive officer of Carmudi Philippines, claimed they have existed in the market for only five months yet they have already seen the growing car market here and the expanding web population.

Carmudi.com.ph is an online vehicle market place which started operating in the nation in January this year.The firm has recently expanded to other cities specifically in Cebu after its first office in Metro Manila.

Cebu: A logical choice

24-year-old Boldt told The FREEMAN in a phone interview said that Cebu has always been their logical choice for the online business after the capital because it is the second largest city in the Philippines, believing that most Cebuanos are web and smartphone users.

The Cebu office, located in Mango Avenue, currently employs five workers.

"You know car market in the Philippines is very professional already," he noted. "This is an emerging country. We see that more people are investing in cars."

The digital age, he said, has driven a paradigm shift in the way consumers buy things--switching from offline to online platforms.

Carmudi is a web market where car buyers, sellers and dealers trade private and commercial vehicles. It has already existed in other countries such as Indonesia, Myanmar, Vietnam, Nigeria, Bangladesh, etc. since it started in 2013.

The CEO attributed the increasing number of car listings on the site to the nation's smartphone market, the fast-growing in the Southeast Asia so far.

The online startup now has around 10,000 listings from the initial 400 and it expects the number to reach 20,000 by the end of August this year; 1,200 of the listings are in Cebu.

Boldt said a sharp increase of 200 percent every month in listings is proof that people are taking the online world to trade their cars.

Meanwhile, the Chamber of Automotive Manufacturers of the Philippines has said in its Philippines Autos Report Q2 2014 that auto sales in the country increased by 17.5 percent to 17,185 units yearly in December last year.

The chamber added it remains positive this year on auto sales which, Boldt said, increased by 16percent in January alone: "The increase most probably will continue this year."

Carmudi is supported by Rocket Internet, a global e-commerce portal on venture capital firms and startup incubators and also the portfolio behind other online sites such as Lazada, Zalora and Groupon. It is also operating in Makati, Laguna, Pampanga, Batangas and Cavite and is now eyeing Davao City as the next target market.

He explained that private sellers are free to post photos of their cars for sale on the site while commercial dealers are asked to pay a fee (ranging from P200-P600 per listing) for the service.

In terms of security, the young man said the online portal's quality assurance team has assured buyers the information on the listing is valid and the legitimacy is checked.

He also added that experience would suggest that majority of their buyers are people on their 30s and 40s although he would not deny that the young demographic of the market is getting attractive to car trading.

Being a young entrepreneur himself, he told people especially those of his age to discover the opportunities in building an online enterprise as web technologies are changing the way transactions are done and the Philippines industries in general.  (FREEMAN)