Olx, global online classifieds platform has established its presence in India since 2006. I had an opportunity to interview Amarjit Batra, Olx India, CEO who was earlier with eBay for over 5 years and has deep understanding of B2B, B2C and C2C Internet business in India. Here is an excerpt from the same.
Building the Olx brand in India:
We would be able to build a strong brand when our users enjoy using OLX for their everyday requirements of buying, selling, exchanging, trading products and services and have a great experience while using the site. Our effort is to continuously provide them the best classifieds platform and the best classifieds content in their city and make their OLX experience memorable and referable. Once we make a difference to their lives, whether it’s getting them their dream job, selling their old car directly to a buyer, finding the house that they always wanted to own, or helping them start a part time business of selling online, we are making a meaningful impact for them. The OLX team is committed to building such a brand.
Current Status of Classifieds Market, Size and the Online Classifieds market in 3 years:
The classifieds market is consolidating in India. Both offline and online classifieds market are growing as the penetration of print as well as internet is on an upswing. The growth of the online classifieds is dependent on the local language adoption on the internet. The English print readership in the country is limited and the total English speaking population is less than 100 Mn which is less than 10% of the total Indian population. As we are seeing in the case of print, where some of the largest print dailies are in Hindi or regional languages, we should see the similar trend in 2 to 3 years for online. As per the latest reports for last year, the local language consumption of online media is growing faster than the English one.
Considering that India has also have a limited population that is comfortable with PC’s, there could be a possibility that mobile classifieds could be the next big thing in our country.
In terms of sizing, Classifieds is at least a $100 Bn market worldwide. In US the online classifieds is gradually gaining share at newspaper classifieds expense. India online classifieds market size presently should be anywhere between Rs. 800 crores to Rs. 900 Crores. Offline classifieds size would be bigger than online today but the gap would narrow in the years to come. It’s difficult to estimate the exact size in 3 years but it is definitely heading north.
Localization Plans and Growth Plans in India:
OLX is growing well in India and we are getting good traffic and content from Indian users. We are aiming to be anywhere and everywhere from where Indian users can access us. Since Internet penetration in India is limited, we have a fantastic mobile application http://m.olx.in that mobile internet users can use on the go.
Since a large portion of the Indian population prefers to communicate in their own language (not English) we are planning to localize OLX in the key Indian languages. Presently, our users can browse the site in ‘English’ and ‘Hindi’ and we hope to add other languages in the future. Our site also is being localized to Indian user needs and therefore we have introduced ‘Matrimonial’ category in India only.
Unlike other classifieds sites, we are not restricting ourselves to select top cities in India. We are present in most cities in India.
Growth and Traffic from Non-Tier-I / II Cities:
Since we are present across all major cities in India, we are seeing traffic across more than 900 cities and towns. Out of our total traffic, about 75% are from the Top cities and the rest 25% is coming from small towns.
With the increasing penetration of PC’s and broadband in small towns, we expect more traffic from these small towns. In the next 3 years, we expect at least 40% of traffic to come from small towns. Considering there is a significant mobile population in these towns and the telecom companies are on an expansion spree, there is a strong possibility that a significant number of new internet users from small towns access internet from their mobile.
We are a city based classifieds service and there are many cities in India that do not have a print classifieds option. There would be limited options of advertising within their town or city, and that is the reason we think an increasing number of users from these towns would adopt OLX.
It will likely be a repeat of Telecom story as the same operators are operating in smaller towns. The interview continues and we talk about Olx as a company in the second part.