BUSINESS INITIATIVES

l Providing customised content, product information, and comparison of cars based on price, mileage, technical features, and servicing requirements.

l Launching of mobile app and acquiring Gaadi. com to strengthen the management team and gain a foothold in the used car segment.

l Acquiring Zigwheels from Times Internet to enhance content quality and transactional capabilities.

l Acquired Buying IQ, a comparative shopping portal.

l Acquisition of India’s automotive YouTube channel Powerdrift to gain access to more than two million subscribers.

l Foray into the motor and health insurance sector by launching InsuranceDekho, an online insurance platform.

l Merging financial services business to launch fintech platform Rupyy to provide auto financing and secondhand car loans.

great help to the platform. The company has over 3,500 used car dealers across India.

CarDekho also uses AI and ML tools and predictive analysis to keep track of the storage of cars across sites. This helps reduce the maintenance cost and reduces inventory size as per the demand from each location. “The AI and ML predictive analysis helps us in inventory management. Inventory across sites is managed and only the correct number of cars are stored based on location and necessity. AI has helped us bring down the maintenance cost,” Anurag says adding that the adoption has increased the CarDekho platform’s efficiency on the cost by over 50%.

In the used car segment, the company has implemented AI automobile inspection procedures and ML tools that automatically detect defects, thereby ensuring that the company can meet its promise of high-quality standards. The platform uses advanced AIenhanced automobile inspection procedures and meta-information listing to identify the car’s condition in detail.

This helps in creating an inspection report that is shared with the customers to help them make a purchase decision. It also uses computer vision and ML tools to determine the value and condition of a car. The ML-enabled solution monitors the video and detects defects like dents and scratches to automatically modify the cost for that specific vehicle.

On the pricing front, CarDekho uses a proprietary algorithm to create a selection of cars that are most soughtafter by customers. The AI-enabled tool has an autopricing system that ascertains the best rate for the cars as well as the ideal procurement rate for the sellers. This insures a stable and transparent pricing mechanism. The intelligent pricing model along with the use of a neural network helps the platform evaluate the pricing predictability of a vehicle, enabling it to recommend the best price for buyers.

Explains Anurag: “The AI tool brings in standardisation and consistency in pricing thereby enabling us to mitigate the chance of fluctuation of prices. The consistency in pricing has helped us gain user trust and ensure customer loyalty.”

The story of CarDekho’s success is that of organic and inorganic growth strategies, driven by rich content and a focus on using cutting-edge technologies to enhance the consumer experience. This included acquisitions to gain market- and mind-share and technologies to offer innovative products and services to disrupt the automobile sector and create an ecosystem for online auto purchases, in an otherwise driveand-experience business.