OLX To Invest USD 94 Mn In SA’s Car Dealership Service Webuycars
South African specialized car buying service, Webuycars, is believed to be on the receiving end of a major capital infusion from Naspers’ OLX Group. The investment whose value is placed around USD 94 Mn is coming as a plus to the duo as it is expected to weigh in significantly in bringing about further developments in the overall car dealership ecosystem.
Webuycars runs a used car marketplace in South Africa, offering a specialized car buying service to sellers. The investment from OLX is believed to be motivated by plans that are largely aimed at driving OLX’s proprietary online classifieds category.
Through the investment, OLX is looking to leverage the specialized instant buying model of the nearly two-decade-old company that is the brainchild of sibling duo, Faan and Dirk van der Walt. Having seen the car dealership company carve a niche for itself over the years with its unique business model, OLX is looking to get in on the act with this big move.
Through the provision of dealerships with improved access to stock and private buyers and sellers, the investment deal is expected to go some way towards improving the service structure of the ecosystem. The deal is also envisaged to foster enhance user experience with emphasis on such aspects as trust, convenience, and safety.
With regard to the investment, Martin Scheepbouwer, CEO of OLX Group, expressed belief and reposed confidence in the potential held by the offerings from the car buying service in the area of bringing about improvements in user experience in the classifieds category across all OLX platforms. He also expressed his satisfaction with the customer-centered and lean-operating model of Webuycars, hinting at the idea that these factors may have indeed been a major motivation in closing the deal.
The OLX Chief also revealed optimism at the prospect of pulling together concerted efforts with a view to empowering car dealers and imparting further convenience and trust to the used car business in South Africa, which in some quarters, is thought to be still somewhat lacking. The CEO believes in the potential of the South African eCommerce industry in churning out significant ROIs, and this may be a reason to expect more investments from the group in the future, as they are known to have made a similar investment into Frontier Car Group only a few months prior.
Faan van der Walt, CEO of Webuycars, expressed his excitement at the prospect of securing the investment as he believes it will come in handy in facilitating efforts that are geared towards enhancing customer experience, as well as fuel the growth plans of the business going forward.
This development was first reported by Reuters.
