Could Carmido change the game in Nigeria?

With over 14,200 listed vehicles One Africa Media-owned Cheki.com.ng is Nigeria’s biggest auto portal. According to Carey Eaton, co-founder of One Africa Media, “Cheki is clearly Nigeria’s No. 1 as measured by total listings, number of new ads listed every month, site traffic, number of autos actually sold, and by all brand recognition metrics”.
Still, when Berlin-based Rocket Internet, the start-up expert managed by the Samwer brothers and co-financed by Swedish investment firm Kinnevik, enters the Nigerian auto market, as it did with Carmido at the end of May this year, the question can justifiably be asked whether the game is about to change.
All the more, since Carmido doesn’t charge for listing, while Cheki does.
A month after its launch Carmido.com.ng had 228 listed vehicles, two months later 421 vehicles. There’s no mobile site. It offers the normal services and features: you can buy or sell new or used autos, motorcycles and commercial vehicles from private users or professional dealers across Nigeria. The site is user-friendly, if not a bit plain, or unspectacular. The choice of name might turn out a bit unfortunate – in East/West Africa many people know Carmido as a kind of bacterial disease.
Eaton is not concerned about the new competitor for Cheki in Nigeria. “We have faced Google, Naspers, Schipsted and Ringier in the past. All entered the market with well-funded platforms. None impacted our market share negatively. So, we will simply continue to focus on what we do well,” he said.
Carmido and Rocket Internet did not respond to our approaches, but vehicle import statistics released by the Nigerian Automobile Manufacturers Association point to why Rocket Internet launched an auto portal in Nigeria.
In the first nine months of last year Nigeria imported 96,629 vehicles, of which 22,192 were new and 74,437 vehicles used. Nigeria also builds vehicles, for instance, at plants of Volkswagen Nigeria and Peugeot Automobile Nigeria. Statistics for total vehicle registrations (imported and locally manufactured) are not available, but from the import stats alone and the fact that Cheki, the biggest auto portal, only has 14,200 vehicles listed, it is clear that offline trade dominates and that online markets offer lots of growth potential.
Carmido probably launched with a free model to build market share. But, costs are high (not only is it free to list, but a Carmido employee travels to the seller to photograph his vehicle/s and then lists it for him) and only two income sources are in place (professional sellers may become “trusted sellers” and/or set up company profile pages).
So, Carmido is under pressure to grow its vehicle listings quickly – or face a review of the free model by financier Rocket Internet.
 

Written by lawrence wambua

Source Source http://aimgroup.com