As the smartphone and internet penetration in emerging economies, especially in Asia Pacific is increasing, the used car market is getting more organized because used car retailers are using digitalization to make market offerings attractive. Facilities such as enormous number of photos and videos on the online platform and easy online instant finance service is drawing more customers into buying used cars.

In North American market, where the used car sale to new car sale ratio is almost 2 to 1, many new players such as Fair and Vroom are using artificial intelligence and big data analytics to differentiate their brand and offerings from conventional used car dealers. Major OEMs are now investing in the used car segment to ramp up their revenues.

Tech savvy customers in the age group of 25 to 40 years are demanding features such as end to end transaction, doorstep delivery, digitalized recommendation on the basis of driving behavior and lifestyle of customer and digitalized test drives. Players in the market are providing flawless and smooth access to car specifications, performance reports and inventory information to customers to assist them in making informed decisions.

Mercedes-Benz is using blockchain technology to store and maintain the maintenance history record of carbon footprint of used cars in Beijing. 35% of a car’s carbon footprint comes from the manufacturer. Mercedes-Benz and PlatON are planning store the entire lifecycle data for a vehicle.

China currently has more than 300 million registered vehicles. This is expected to become a large used vehicle inventory for the world in the near future. With an increasing focus on EVs and autonomous vehicles in the country, China is planning to sell its registered vehicles to those countries where emission and safety norms are lenient. Recently in May 2019, ten Chinese cities have been granted permission to export used cars by the country’s Ministry of Commerce. Following suite, a Chinese company in Guangzhou recently exported nearly 300 used cars to Cambodia, Myanmar, Nigeria, and Russia. The import-export business of used cars is also prominent in Europe with France, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Netherlands and Portugal being the major countries for this business.

The used car market in India is expected to grow at a rate close to 15% over the next five years. Online classified platform OLX expects the used car market to reach USD 25 billion mark by 2023. Millennials are considered as the factor driving the used car market in India. Millennials in India are tech savvy and are focusing on resale value of the vehicle rather than size and brand.

Over the years, the used car market has evolved in the country, with the growth of the organized and semi-organized sector. Currently, the sale of used cars is 1.3 times that of new cars in the country and the ratio is expected to reach 2:1 in the next five years.

One of the key growth drivers in the market is the revision of the Goods & Services Tax (GST) rate on used cars from 28% - 43% to 12% - 18%, based on the make and build. As the Indian auto-industry is entering the BS-VI era from April 2020, the value proposition of the used car can grow stronger, as new cars are expected to become expensive due to additional technology costs.