Shriram Automall buys online car auction platform Bluejack to strengthen business

Shriram Automall India (SAMIL), has acquired BlueJack, an online car selling portal for an undisclosed amount in a bid to accelerate its offline auction market position with online used car sales. The company says with this it will be able to tap into BlueJack's technology and team and will be able to further address the growing need of the market.

According to SAMIL at present seven million used cars are sold in India every year valuing the market at over Rs 50,000 crore in 2022. With this acquisition, the company targets to transact yearly over 1.2 million vehicles to the tune of over Rs 30,000 crore.

Along with Shriram Automall’s physical and online bidding platforms, over 10 million customers of SAMIL and its affiliates will get additional means of car selling through this deal in the country.

BlueJack was founded in 2016 and has auctioned more than 25,000 vehicles on its platform. It operates in Delhi with dealers from 10 states, including cities like Bangalore and Hyderabad. The online platform buys cars using its proprietary pricing database and a live auction to calculate an offer within minutes and then sells the vehicles to one of its 5,000 empanelled dealerships. SAMIL says BlueJack is one of the largest players in the Delhi NCR market and using the Shriram platform, it will be implementing its experience and technology across the country.

Sameer Malhotra, CEO, Shriram Automall said “ We are excited to upgrade our offerings across India with BlueJack. We look forward to learn from them and share our own experience of operating at scale across 150 auction locations spread over 100 tier I, tier II and tier III cities. Together, we believe we can offer the best auction experience for our Indian market with innovative technology.”

“SAMIL’s consistent ability to create unique propositions for their diverse target market and their customer obsessed culture will provide a great launchpad for BlueJack as they scale. On-boarding BlueJack is a continuation of the SAMIL promise – Certain, omni-channel transformation of the way India rides on wheels,” added Malhotra.

Manish Kheterpal, managing partner, WaterBridge Ventures (which is the lead investor in BlueJack) said: “As the fragmented used car industry formalises both on the consumer and dealers end, using a blend of technology, data, and old-fashioned human touch is the most effective way to solve for trust deficit and friction in the industry. Synergies between SAMIL and BlueJack are highly compelling, and together they would be a formidable force in this rapidly growing used cars industry.”

BlueJack is expected to fully integrate with SAMIL’s operations and group companies in first half of 2020. The founders and team will supercharge traction with their technology, data and movement of the joint user base to the new platform.

According to SAMIL the Indian used car market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 18 percent. The segment saw steady growth in FY2019, and is estimated to have crossed the 4 million unit mark, while it is 1.2 times the size of the new car market, driven partly by increasing demand for used vehicles in Tier II and Tier III cities of India. It is further poised to reach 7 million cars per year by FY2022.