Carsome, which bills itself as Southeast Asia’s largest integrated car e-commerce platform, has announced its foray into motorsports sponsorship as part of brand-building. Carsome is now a very prominent sponsor of the B-Quik Absolute Racing Team Car #1, the Audi R8 LMS Evolution driven by Sandy Stuvik in the 2021 Thailand Super Series.
Stuvik, the first Thai driver to win a Formula 3 championship and the reigning double champion of the Thailand Super Series GT3 Class, will also become Carsome’s partner in the Thai market.
According to Carsome co-founder and group CEO Eric Cheng (right in the pic below, pictured together with fellow co-founder Teoh Jiun Ee), the company is evolving from just elevating the used car buying and selling experience to also building avenues that enhance its brand. It now wants to bring together a community that understands and shares the same ethos of solving industry pain points through technology, he says.
“This partnership is a teaming up of champions to scale greater heights. As a leader in our industry, we want to work with similar-minded partners like B-Quik Absolute Racing Team and Sandy, both champions in their respective leagues, to expand our footprint as well as bring greater joy and value to people who matter to us. For Carsome, we pledge to bring cutting edge data applications and technologies to enrich and move people forward in the new norm through holistic mobility solutions,” Cheng added.
Carsome declares that its larger ambition is to be a part of local communities in countries where it operates, and one of the best ways to achieve this is through sports. Motorsports is the most natural gateway for Carsome, given the industry it is in, and the company feels that the most fitting motorsports event in the region is the Thailand Super Series.
“We are proud to stand by Thai people and celebrate local sporting events that bring people together. Our involvement in the Thailand Super Series is the first of several more to come in the region,” Cheng said.
The sponsorship announcement comes as Carsome is officially expanding Carsome Certified, its business-to-consumer (B2C) arm, to Indonesia and Thailand. While there are already four Carsome Certified outlets known as Carsome Experience Centers in Malaysia, the flagship stores in Jakarta and Bangkok will be officiated this month.
Carsome also received a couple of accolades in the first quarter of the year, namely the EY Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year, SME & Entrepreneurs Business Award’s Technopreneur of the Year and Wild Digital’s BOOM21 Disruptors. It is also the only Malaysian company ranked in the Top 50 of the Nikkei-FT-Statista High-Growth Companies Asia-Pacific 2021 list.
On the financial front, the company recorded solid growth, transacting an annualised 100,000 cars totalling more than US$700 million (RM2.89 billion) in transacted value. This increases Carsome’s penetration rate of the Southeast Asian used car market to almost 2%, up from the previous 1.0-1.5%. “We are very encouraged by our growth. With greater ambition, we are on track to surpass the US$1 billion (RM4.1 billion) revenue mark by the end of 2021,” a bullish Cheng added.
The post Carsome builds its brand via motorsports sponsorship appeared first on Paul Tan's Automotive News.
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