Used-Car Marketplace Carmudi Broadens Africa Footprint

Second-hand cars for sale at Berger Auto Mart in Lagos, Nigeria, in 2010. Today, Berger Auto Mart is a featured used-car retailer on Carmudi’s Nigerian homepage.

George Osodi for The Wall Street Journal

It’s been a busy year for Carmudi, a developing-world used-car start-up, and it’s about to get busier.
This time last year, the online marketplace that promises faster and safer service in some of the world’s toughest spots, set up shop in Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy. Ghana, Cameroon, Senegal and Ivory Coast followed.
This week, Carmudi starts its journey from West Africa toward the continent’s center and East, adding Congo Brazzaville and Tanzania to its portfolio.
Second-hand vehicles have been imported into the continent for years and the trade has been building up as many African countries have been getting richer and more populous.
Carmudi, which launched an Android app earlier this year to start tapping the massive African mobile market, is trying to catch that wave.
It’s a “premium service,” says its Africa boss, Karl-Johan Sturesson, a Swede who moved to Nigeria to open the company and hasn’t looked back.
Like many online middlemen, Mr. Sturesson says his shop goes the extra mile to reassure visitors about the quality of the goods sold.
In Carmudi’s case this translates to a service where car dealers get them checked and certified by a mechanic. The badge of honor helps the car’s online marketability, says Mr. Sturesson.
Carmudi doesn’t charge a commission on successful sales but rather a subscription fee. Mr. Sturesson says things are going swimmingly –but won’t share metrics or revenue figures quite yet.
Across the five countries where it operates, Carmudi hosts some 55,000 unique listings a week. It doesn’t accept cross-postings, meaning that, if a car is listed there it can’t be listed on any other car classified websites. Of those, 35,000 are in Nigeria alone; 1,500 dealers are signed up.
Carmudi is one of several start-ups to be backed by Africa Investment Holdings –a pot of cash set aside by mobile giants MTN and Milicom and e-commerce firm Rocket Internet with a mission to encourage a move of the African economy online.
“[AIH] is now the leading internet incubator in Africa, with nine startups in over 20 countries. In all countries we have over 3,000 employees,” a spokeswoman for the fund said. That includes Africa’s online shopping sweetheart, Jumia.