SoftBank and Trusty Cars (Carro), the Singapore-based provider of one of Southeast Asia’s leading online automotive retailers, announced the establishment of CARRO JAPAN, a joint venture that will provide a used car subscription (car leasing) service marketplace.
Guided by its vision to “build a platform where anyone can use cars at affordable prices,” CARRO JAPAN operates a marketplace that provides a used car subscription service at affordable prices and other ancillary services. Various enterprises, including car leasing companies, will participate in the marketplace.
CARRO JAPAN is first launching services for enterprises in the Japan market on September 20, 2022, and aims to expand its services to individual consumers in the future.
1. Background
In line with its “Beyond Carrier” growth strategy, SoftBank is expanding into non-telecom fields, including the provision of innovative services for a wide range of industry sectors. By co-creating with other companies in various industries, SoftBank is also working to solve social issues and create new value through digital transformation (DX).
Present in 5 countries across the Asia Pacific, Carro is an online used car retailer that provides customers a transparent and hassle-free buying and selling experience for used cars. Powered by AI, Carro’s technology platform is transforming the car ownership and usage experience. Carro’s investors include SoftBank Vision Fund 2.
SoftBank and Carro have established CARRO JAPAN to transform and solve the issues facing Japan’s used car market. CARRO JAPAN will leverage SoftBank’s market knowledge in Japan and extensive business know-how and Carro’s expertise and technologies in the car buying and selling business.
2. Market environment
Various issues have surfaced in Japan’s automotive market in recent years, including lower vehicle production and soaring prices due to a shortage of semiconductors for vehicles. Furthermore, demand for used cars, which can be delivered relatively quicker and at lower prices, as well as more convenient subscription services, is increasing due to diversifying car ownership and usage customer needs.
However, there is the difficulty of predicting the future value of used cars with a high level of accuracy due to unclear vehicle quality evaluation criteria and the prevalence of personal judgements when valuing used cars. This has led to high barriers to entry for the used car transaction business and the related subscription business, as well as high fees and limited choice for customers.
3. Business outline
CARRO JAPAN provides a used car subscription service marketplace that utilizes Carro’s proprietary AI technology to predict the residual value of used cars in order to make highly accurate, data-based future value predictions for used cars and solve problems the industry is facing. CARRO JAPAN’s online platform connects participating car leasing companies with users who want to use cars at affordable prices via a subscription model. Carro’s AI technology calculates affordable prices for used cars, and participating car leasing companies receive support to provide high quality and affordable used car subscription services that match customer needs. Participating companies benefit from expanded opportunities to provide services outside of their own platforms, and customers can use cars that meet their conditions at affordable prices.
In addition to preparing an interface that makes procedures from the user vehicle selection to application process smooth, the marketplace plans to offer various new solutions and functions in the future. These include solutions to manage vehicle operation histories and encourage safe driving via driver behavior monitoring and the management of vehicle operation histories. The company is also looking into smartphone-based ancillary services that support the usage and management of company cars, as well as payment consolidation.
4. Future developments
In addition to expanding services to individual consumers, CARRO JAPAN is considering implementing customer referrals that utilize “carview!”, a comprehensive automotive information portal operated by Yahoo Japan Corporation, a SoftBank group company, as well as collaborations with other group companies. In the future, CARRO JAPAN will study the utilization of AI-based vehicle image analysis and jointly expanding this marketplace further into the East Asia region to promote SoftBank’s “Beyond Japan” initiative.
