OLX to start monetising in India

Next year, the firm will start offering priority space for premium listings at a cost

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Argentina-based OLX, online platform for local classifieds, aims to start monetising this in India next year, said Amarjit Batra, chief executive officer of its arm in this country.

The company will start offering priority space for premium listings at a cost. So far, OLX is a free website for local classifieds in India. “Paid classified postings and premium listings are two proven routes we have availed in some countries, among other avenues. We’ll be starting these in India early next year,” said Batra.

Poland is one country where it has started monetising successfully, among a few others. Naspers-backed OLX started operations in India in 2006.

Batra said India was one the largest markets for OLX in terms of number of page views and, globally, one of the most important markets. Other important ones include Brazil, Indonesia and Poland. It has a prominent presence in 40 markets and is leader in 25. OLX India, says Batra, has grown about 150 times in three years and gets about 1.5 billion page views a month. It, however, does not track transaction details.

Automobiles account for about 45 per cent of page views, followed by mobile handsets, consumer durables and other home products. The total number of listings is higher in the mobile handset segment. Other listing spaces such as jobs or real estate are not a focus for OLX in India. Batra said the company would continue to focus on the consumer to consumer segment and would not be tapping the business to consumer one.

OLX India on Wednesday issued a study on the used goods market. This revealed urban families in India are estimated to have Rs 56,200 crore worth of used goods like clothing, utensils and books. The survey says the estimated market for used goods was Rs 22,000 crore last year.

“Metros and tier-I cities contribute 60 per cent of the total value of Rs 56,200 crore. On an average, each urban Indian home is stocking an estimated Rs 8,400 worth of used goods,” said Batra. The number is Rs 19,500 in tier-I cities. Clothing, kitchen utensils and books are the most stocked items — 40 per cent, 34 per cent and 27 per cent of households stock these, respectively. North India tops the selling chart, with 48 per cent households doing so, the eastern part led stocking with 97 per cent and the west in terms of buying used goods.