Indonesian media company breathes new life into CarBay

Traffic in India. Photo credit: Lingaraj GJ

Emtek is one of Indonesia’s largest media companies. It owns TV stations, radio, and a number of digital properties.

Most recently, it became known as the company that’s taken over development of the Blackberry Messenger – Blackberry’s standalone chat app that still has an active user base of 60 million people in Indonesia, even though the once popular devices have lost their allure.

CarBay launched in Indonesia in 2015, facing rivals like iCarAsia and Carmudi.

Emtek is also one of the major forces backing ecommerce startups like Bukalapak and Kudo. It’s hungry for more digital opportunities.

Emtek today announced a joint venture with CarBay, an automobile information portal created by India’s Girnar Software. In India, Girnar runs automobile sites CarDekho, Gaadi, and Zigwheels.

CarBay in Indonesia will from now on be known as Oto and offer “car and motorbike research sections, providing exhaustive information about prices, specifications, features, pictures, reviews, and road tests of various models,” the companies’ joint statement says.

Girnar Software retains 70 percent ownership in the Indonesia operation, while Emtek’s subsidiary KMK took over 30 percent. It gave no further details on the deal.

Slow market

CarBay launched in Indonesia in 2015.

It tried to make its mark in a niche already crowded with rivals like iCarAsia and Rocket Internet’s Carmudi.

Unlike the latter two, CarBay wasn’t trying to connect automobile buyers and sellers for a transaction. It’s an information portal only, and Oto continues down this path.

Of the three, ASX-listed iCarAsia is perhaps the most established in Southeast Asia, with a footprint across Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. The company’s shares, however, haven’t been performing well as a result of softer-than-expected revenue growth.

Carmudi is rumored to have scaled back its effort in Indonesia earlier this year. Rocket Internet’s Asia Pacific Internet Group, which Carmudi is part of, hasn’t confirmed this though.

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from Tech in Asia https://www.techinasia.com/emtek-carbay-partnership
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