CarDekho's FY23 revenue grows 46% on services but loss widens

CarDekho on Monday reported a 46.3% jump in its annual total income primarily on the back of the increased sale of services, including listing and selling vehicles for auto manufacturers, and advertising and digital marketing solutions.

The autotech unicorn also offers digital marketing solutions for dealers to help nurture and convert leads into sales. It also sells insurance products to consumers directly via its platform.

However, despite the significant leap in revenue, the company fell short of achieving profitability.

High expenses ate into the company's bottom line, resulting in a consolidated loss of Rs 565.95 crore for the year ended March 31, 2023—2.3X higher than the loss in the previous fiscal year.

Expenses at CarDekho rose across diverse segments, including rent, legal professional fees, and IT costs. But the biggest was advertising and promotions expenses, which jumped over 50% from a year ago.

Its total consolidated revenue was Rs 2,408.41 crore, compared with Rs 1,646.3 crore earned in the previous year.

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In FY22, the company had started to show signs of improvement with losses narrowing from the year prior. In fact, CarDekho has been optimistic about turning profitable—at a consolidated level—by FY24.

But its FY23 results indicate some more turbulence ahead before the company can break even. The Ratan Tata-backed company was touted to be eyeing an initial public offering in the second half of 2022 or early 2023 but that hasn't materialised either.

CarDekho has been focusing its efforts on growing its insurance and lending business, InsuranceDekho, which raised $150 million in its first investment round led by Goldman Sachs and TVS Capital Funds.

In line with some of its competitors including CarTrade, which recently shut down the OLX auto sales business it had acquired just two months ago, CarDekho too has been scaling down its asset-heavy used car business and focusing on expanding its services offerings.