SINGAPORE: Southeast Asia’s largest online used car retailer, today released key highlights of their financial year ending in March 2022.
CARRO more than doubled its revenue and gross profit to a record in its last financial year, achieving more than S$650mil in revenue.
It is currently tracking at over S$1.3bil in run-rate revenue and is poised to deliver another 2x growth in revenue this financial year (FY2023).
The pioneers of the Certified Pre-Owned vehicle e-marketplace in Southeast Asia also achieved profitability in its last financial year.
CARRO co-founder and CEO Aaron Tan said FY2022 was the group’s strongest showing yet.
“Not only did we grow 2.5 times, we did so profitably. We were laser focused over the pandemic around operational excellence and cost improvements; we chose to utilise programmers to solve our problems and are starting to see the fruits of our labour,” he said.
The Group’s continued focus on online retailing and machine learning have brought about record gross profits.
The company is on track to improve its gross profit margins to about 10% by the end of this financial year, thereby tripling its absolute gross profit.
CARRO chief data scientist Dr Bryan Tan said the organisation was focusing on data science and machine learning in every aspect of the consumer journey, from the pricing algorithm of its customer’s cars to credit approvals.
“By leveraging machine learning to improve and automate our processes, we’ve achieved best-in-class Gross Product Margin in this region compared with our peers,” he said.
CARRO’s online retailing of Certified Pre-Owned vehicles and financial services arm also drove the bulk of its improvements in profitability and margins.
Excluding its wholesale business, the company expects gross profit margins to be almost 15%.
CARRO’s wholly-owned fintech business, Genie Financial Services, also recorded a very strong FY2022.
The company’s Non Performing Loans ratio remained at a low of 0.1% as it continued to deliver about 30% Return on Equity in the last financial year.
The overall loan book grew almost two times to a record S$400mil this year.
CARRO chief financial officer Ernest Chew said revenue growth was not just driven by a single but all its four markets.
“Thailand alone transacted approximately 35,000 units run-rate per year and Indonesia today accounts for almost S$40mil annualised Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortisation (EBITDA).
“We expect revenue for our online retail and ancillary business to hit over S$500mil this financial year.”
Since the beginning of FY2023, CARRO also secured close to S$200mil in additional financing from nine global and domestic financial institutions at highly competitive rates.
Following its strong performance in FY2022, CARRO has also set its sights beyond the shores of Southeast Asia, and has since expanded into Taiwan and Japan this quarter.
The company expects to be EBITDA positive again this year.