Carro, Asia Pacific’s largest online automotive platform, has posted a strong FY2025, achieving record revenues of S$1.2 billion ($920 million) and a gross profit of S$149 million ($111 million).
The unicorn startup said in a statement on Thursday that it also reported an earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) of S$43 million ($32 million) and total assets of S$1.3 billion ($1 billion), according to audited FY2025 numbers.
The firm’s FY2025’s gross profit margin continued its expansion to over 12 percent, as it deepens its strategy of a strong marketplace margin expansion, ecosystem-led ancillary income growth, and productivity optimisation.
In the last 12 months, Carro also scaled up operations in Hong Kong and Japan, cementing its footprint outside of Southeast Asia.
Meanwhile, Carro’s fintech business, Genie Financial Services, recorded a strong consumer loan book growth of 35 percent to S$670 million ($500 million) across the region,
and kept non-performing loans (NPL) at below 0.5 percent, a number much better than industry benchmarks in the region.
“As we grow our differentiated ecosystem-led business operating model, we continue to focus on driving marketplace margin expansion by cross-selling ancillaries to drive recurring income streams and improve customer lifetime value,
“Additionally, we will continue to expand into new markets and segments, particularly in new energy vehicles (NEVs),” said Aaron Tan, Co-founder and Group Chief Executive Officer of Carro.
According to him, this year, the firm launched its brand new segment in Singapore and Malaysia to capture a broader customer base in the automotive value chain, and is looking to bring this to other markets.
At the same time, he said the firm is doubling down on its use of technology and artificial intelligence (AI), coupled with process improvements to drive productivity optimization and enable its businesses to scale better without growing costs linearly,
“We’re excited to share that we’ve launched our most advanced AI-enabled inspection app combining on-board diagnostics, visual, sound and vibration to improve our inspection capabilities,
“Our use of AI also stretches to sales conversion and customer service, which helps handle up to 85 percent of conversations and has cut down average response time by up to 80 percent to below 3 minutes in our largest markets,” he said.
At the same time, he said the firm has redesigned its wholesale platforms to drive platform-led growth and improve the digital experience for both its dealers and end customers.
“All these are part of our bigger plan to scale at pace while exploring new initiatives,” he added.
Ernest Chew, Chief Financial Officer of Carro, said despite a challenging and unpredictable macro-environment, the firm continued focus on execution, unit economics and optimization has resulted in record volumes (+15 percent year-on-year growth), revenues and gross profit, as well as improved margins across most profitability metrics.
“A continuation of these efforts has seen our first half of FY2026 EBITDA growing over 50 percent year-on-year,
“Our overall liquidity by end FY2025 also improved year-on-year, as we continue to be extremely focused on financial discipline, vigilant on cash flows and working capital, and balance sheet strength,” he said.
He also said that following the firm’s latest fundraising led by Cool Japan Fund, the firm has the strongest balance sheet position in three years.
“We are actively diversifying and securitizing our receivables to improve financial flexibility and strengthen our capital structure,
“Very pleased that our investment into Hong Kong has been strategically value-accretive, growing quickly to become a leading player domestically and profitable in the first year,” he added.
The unicorn startup has also officially closed a $60 million round of funding led by Cool Japan Fund, a Japan’s sovereign wealth fund.
This investment will go towards bolstering the demand of Japanese cars across Asia Pacific where Carro has a presence in.