Southeast Asia’s largest integrated car e-commerce platform Carsome Group (Carsome), today announced the acquisition of the remaining 80.1 percent stake in iCar Asia from the Catcha Group and other shareholders of iCar Asia, a leading listings and content automotive platform in Southeast Asia.
Upon the completion of the acquisition, Carsome became the sole shareholder of iCar Asia. Carsome is the market leader in the online used car buying and selling platform across Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore, while iCar Asia is the leading listings and content automotive platform across the same markets. Carsome and iCar Asia, combined, offer an integrated automotive ecosystem – for dealers to source, advertise and sell cars and for consumers to research, sell and buy cars – in a region that trades over US$55 billion1 worth of automobiles annually.
Carsome Co-founder and Group CEO Eric Cheng mentioned that the company has been collaborating with iCar Asia since July 2021. “We are pleased with the smooth completion of this acquisition. This partnership will enable us to further augment our offerings across discovery, consideration, purchase and fulfillment, covering the entire auto ecosystem anchored on our core values of trust, transparency and technology,” Cheng said.
The acquisition is expected to allow Carsome to provide more diversified solutions and experience across the buying and selling value chain to more dealers and consumers in the key markets. The expanded suite of solutions will offer consumers an end-to-end, one-stop experience that covers the entire car ownership journey – from search, transaction, finance and insurance to after-sales services.