Linking Real Car Buyers With Car Dealers – Malaysia’s No.1 Car Site Sets New Record

iCar Asia Limited, the publisher of Carlist.my, LiveLifeDrive.com and Malaysian Evo magazine closed quarter 2 of 2015 by achieving its best ever monthly results.

Carlist.my, Malaysia’s No.1 car site with over 166,000 cars on sale, registered over 1.9 million car buyers in visiting the website in the month of June. Out of the many visiting car buyers, 220,000 of them utilized the ‘call’ function on our mobile-friendly website to contact a car dealer last month.

Over 1,700 car dealers also paid to have their advertisements appear as a ‘Featured’ listing, another monthly record for the company.

With over 166,000 cars listed on Carlist.my, and a proven record of delivering high-quality leads to dealers, it appears that many dealers do not mind spending RM8 (up from RM3 in February) to ‘bump’ their ads to the top of the listing.

Over 70,000 ads were ‘bumped’ to the top within the 30-day period. Last month, Malaysian car dealers bought a record RM550,000 in monthly credits for their future ‘bump’ activities.

Damon Rielly, CEO of iCar Asia said, “Carlist.my is a powerhouse in the market. The ability to triple the price of our ‘bump’ product and within three months still achieve new record highs for paying accounts is testament to the very strong market leadership position we have built.  We are excited about the huge potential awaiting Carlist.my as the clear market leader.”

In the coming months, LiveLifeDrive.com will be relaunched into a luxury automotive lifestyle content portal.

Outside of Malaysia, iCar Asia continued to strengthen its lead in Thailand and Indonesia.

Thailand’s No.1 car site One2car.com delivered a record 270,000 leads to car dealers. Total visits to iCar Asia’s Thai websites – One2car.com, AutoSpinn.com and Thaicar.com exceeded 4 million in June.

Mr Rielly said, “We are very happy with the rapid progress made in Thailand post the acquisition of the market-leading One2car.com.  We have made significant changes to all aspects of the business and successfully guided our customers through these changes.  As a result, our position in the Thailand market is stronger than ever. We now have the capability to grow rapidly into the incredible opportunity that exists in Thailand’s very large automotive market.”

In Indonesia, Mobil123.com delivered over 140,000 individual car buyers to car sellers in June. Over 1,600 dealers are now paid subscribers to Mobil123.com, while a record 1.8 million unique car buyers visited the website in June.

Mr Rielly said, “The key driver for success in Indonesia is to continue to drive our key metrics to record levels, and to increase the number of Dealers who utilise our market-leading Response Management System (RMS) to promote their listings and sell more cars.  We are extremely happy with the performance of the business and believe we are in the prime position to reap the huge opportunity in Indonesia.”

All these combined to deliver a strong Quarter 2 result for iCar Asia Limited. Cash receipts for the period increased by 169% over the prior corresponding period in 2014 to AUD1.3 million. In excess of AUD2.7 million was collected in the first half of 2015, an increase of 138% over H1 2014.

Net operating cash outflow for the quarter was AUD3.2 million which included one-off costs relating to the integration of One2car.com. Despite these one-off costs, this cash outflow was AUD0.5 million lower than in Q1 of 2015. Cash receipts from display advertising are seasonally lower in Q2 as compared to Q1 2015 as collections from peak season Q4 2014 advertising revenues took place in Q1 2015, while collections from low season Q1 advertising revenues took place in Q2 2015.