Cartrade Tech Limited (CARTRADE) share price
₹2837.90 on NSE as of 2026-10-08. -2.63% on the day. market cap ₹13,628 Cr. P/E 58.6. 52-week range ₹1623.40 to ₹3268.00. Consumer Services.
CarTrade Tech Q1 FY27: Operating Profit Up 45% While Sequential Profit Slips ₹13 Crore
At a glance
CarTrade Tech runs car and bike marketplaces, a vehicle auction business and the OLX classifieds site. Revenue in the three months to June 2026 was ₹201 crore, against ₹173 crore a year earlier. The preceding March quarter had brought in ₹203 crore, so the sequential line moved slightly lower. Operating profit rose to ₹63 crore, from ₹44 crore in the same quarter last year. Operating margin, which is core trading profit as a share of sales, reached 31% against 25%. Net profit was ₹51 crore, compared with ₹43 crore a year earlier. The immediately preceding quarter had carried ₹65 crore of net profit. Earnings for each share in issue came to ₹10.67 for the quarter.
The company's press release puts total income for the quarter at ₹230 crore. That figure includes other income of ₹25.5 crore, which is money earned outside the main business. EBITDA, trading profit measured before interest, tax and depreciation, rose 45% to ₹63 crore. The investor presentation reports Consumer revenue up 18% and Remarketing up 13% year on year. OLX classifieds revenue rose 29% on the same basis, and OLX EBITDA rose 76%.
An exceptional item of ₹3.08 crore was booked, being a one-off cost kept outside normal trading. The company attributes it to salary restructuring under the new Labour Codes notified in November 2025. The statutory auditors, S.R. Batliboi & Associates LLP, issued a limited review report with no qualifications. A limited review is a lighter check than a full audit, used for quarterly figures.
For the full year to March 2026, revenue was ₹779 crore and operating profit ₹257 crore. Net profit across those twelve months of trading came to ₹223 crore. The market pays ₹54.80 for every ₹1 of yearly profit. The figure for the industry is ₹49.60 for every ₹1 of profit. Book value per share, the accounting worth of the company divided by its shares, is ₹519. Borrowings stand at ₹140 crore against a net worth of ₹2,483 crore.
Introduction
CarTrade Tech listed on the exchanges in 2021 and has been collecting automotive properties ever since. The company describes itself as a multi-channel auto platform, which covers three quite different businesses. It owns the sites where buyers research cars, the yards where dealers auction them, and the classifieds page for old fridges.
The classifieds arm arrived through Sobek Auto India Private Limited, bought in August 2023 for ₹536 crore. That deal brought OLX India's classifieds platform and its consumer-to-business auto transaction arm. By October 2023 the consumer-to-business side was shut and the focus narrowed to classifieds alone. The remarketing business came earlier, through Shriram Automall, which runs vehicle auctions. Inspection services came through Adroit Auto, which was acquired for ₹13 crore.
In June 2025 the company launched CarTrade Labs to drive artificial intelligence and technology work across its platforms. In November 2025 it confirmed talks with Girnar Software about a possible consolidation of CarDekho and BikeDekho. By 27 November 2025 both sides had mutually decided not to proceed. In December 2025 the company disclosed a notice from the DGGI, the tax department's investigation arm. The show-cause cum demand notice seeks ₹14.82 crore plus interest and penalties.
Management's May 2026 call framed the year to March 2026 as a step-change year. On that call, management put three-year compound growth at 29% a year on revenue. They put EBITDA growth at 98% a year over the same stretch, and profit after tax at 82%. They said EBITDA margin moved from 9% to 33% over that period. Management also set a long-term goal of roughly ₹1,000 crore of annual profit. They put the timeline at four to five years from that call. Profit after tax for the year to March 2026 was ₹223 crore.
The presentation for the June 2026 quarter puts cash reserves at ₹1,321 crore. On returning any of it, management cited current regulation around tax shelters and carry-forward losses as a constraint. Carry-forward losses are past losses a company can set against tax on future profits. Management mentioned a timeline of two to three years on that point.
Business model
The business runs in three groups, each selling something different to somebody different. The Consumer Group runs the online platforms that connect car buyers with dealers and manufacturers. Those platforms are CarWale, CarTrade.com and BikeWale, where a buyer researches models and compares trims. The company says they run on tech-enabled ERP and CRM software, which handles operations and customer records. The CFO puts the revenue mix here at 70% from manufacturers and 30% from dealers.
The Remarketing Group runs an auction platform for consumers, business sellers, dealers and fleet owners. Shriram Automall is the yard side of it, and Adroit Auto writes down exactly how bad the bumper is. The presentation calls this "phygital", a word for an auction running in a yard and on a screen at once. OLX India runs classifieds across 12 categories, including cars, property, mobile phones and furniture.
The company describes the model as asset-light. It operates more than 500 physical locations, across Automall yards, abSure outlets and OLX India premises. Most of those are leased or rented from third parties, so rent is a standing cost of the footprint.
The June 2026 quarter presentation reports about 80 million monthly active users across the platforms. Roughly 47 million of those sit on CarWale, BikeWale and CarTrade, and about 32 million on OLX India. The same presentation reports more than 100 million app downloads and 95% organic unique visitors. Organic visitors are the ones who arrive without having been bought through advertising. For the year to March 2027 the presentation puts auction listings at 1.48 million. Auction volume over that period is given as 2.25 lakh.
Management described agents built on OLX's own data, including a matchmaking agent and a pricing agent. The pricing agent tells a buyer what price to pay, and image recognition assesses a vehicle's condition. Super Dost is a WhatsApp tool that lets a dealer upload a car photo and receive matched local buyers. Management linked it to cutting how long a dealer holds stock, from 60 to 90 days. Management put the shortened holding period at five days. Access is tied to buying something on OLX; as management put it, it is not a free product.
The Elite Buyer product crossed 100,000 buyers in a single month. The reasoning management gave is arithmetic: there are six times as many buyers as sellers on the platform. Buyers on the platform have historically paid nothing, management said.
Quarterly results, balance sheet, cash flow, ratios, shareholding and the filings themselves are on the full page for Cartrade Tech Limited.
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