Detailed Business Study Report: ICAR ASIA Ltd. Operations

This business study report analyzes ICAR ASIA Ltd., an Australian company operating online automotive platforms in the ASEAN region, specifically Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia. The report provides a detailed overview of the company's business introduction, including its operations, brands, and customer base. It examines production costs and sales, highlighting the company's cost structure and revenue generation. The report also delves into the macro business environment of each key market, assessing economic indicators, political stability, and competitive landscapes. Furthermore, it explores ICAR's sustainability practices and business strategies. The analysis covers the competitive environment, including key competitors and the impact of market dynamics. The report concludes with an assessment of the company's overall performance and future prospects, providing insights into its market position and strategic direction.

Running head: BUSINESS STUDY REPORT OF ICAR ASIA LTD.
Business study report of ICAR ASIA Ltd
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1BUSINESS STUDY REPORT OF ICAR ASIA LTD
Executive summary:
ICAR ASIA Ltd. is an Australia based company. It operates business through online
platform. The company is dealing with various cars. Hence, car dealers and buyers can deal
over here. The company has its branches in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. The company
is leading the market in these three countries. A business study report will be prepared based
on this company.

2BUSINESS STUDY REPORT OF ICAR ASIA LTD
Table of Contents
Introduction:...............................................................................................................................3
Business Introduction:................................................................................................................3
Business Details:....................................................................................................................3
Customers:..............................................................................................................................4
Production costs and sales:.........................................................................................................6
Macro business environment:....................................................................................................6
Malaysia:................................................................................................................................6
Thailand:................................................................................................................................9
Indonesia:.............................................................................................................................11
Sustainability practice of ICAR:..............................................................................................15
Business strategy:.................................................................................................................15
Environmental regulation:....................................................................................................16
Conclusion:..............................................................................................................................16
Reference:................................................................................................................................17

3BUSINESS STUDY REPORT OF ICAR ASIA LTD
Introduction:
Each business organization operates under a competitive environment. They want to
maximize profit level by expanding their business. At present, each company needs a proper
business planning and at the same time, a proper knowledge of market (Cubas‐Díaz &
Martínez Sedano, 2017). Therefore, to do so, all company should make their own business
study report. This report will help them to understand the basic environment of business
under which they are operating their business. This report will analyze a business study report
on ICAR ASIA Ltd. It is an Australian company. The report will discuss on various topics,
related to this company (icarasia.com, 2018). Firstly, it will give a general description of the
company with some important information. Secondly, production costs and scale of
production of this company will be discussed. After that, the macro business environment of
ICAR ASIA Ltd will be analyzed. Fourthly, the report will analyze sustainability practice.
For each part, a suitable conclusion will be drawn to understand each section accurately.
Moreover, the report will draw an overall conclusion to understand the whole scenario
properly.
Business Introduction:
Business Details:
ICAR ASIA Ltd. is an Australian company. It is listed on Australian Security
Exchange as ASX: ICQ. Headquarter of this company is situated in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
The company operates an internet based digital automotive portals and develop their business
in South East Asia. The ICAR group has established their leadership positions in three largest
automotive markets of ASEAN. These are Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. ICAR offers a
Response Management System (RMS). In each country, the company owns different brands.

4BUSINESS STUDY REPORT OF ICAR ASIA LTD
In Malaysia, it has two brands, namely, Carlist.my and LiveLifeDrive.com. In Indonesia, the
company also has two brands. These are Mobil123.com and Otospirit. On the other hand, the
company has three brands in Thailand. These are One2car.com, Thaicar.com and
Autospinn.com. Carlist.my is a single platform, which connects car sellers and car buyers.
Moreover, this site provides classifications and content of cars. On the other side,
Mobil123.com is an automotive classified website (Icarasia.com, 2018). Using this online
platform, both private sellers and motor vehicle dealers can list their car for sale.
Autospinn.com is also an online website that provides automotive content. ICAA ASIA Ltd.
has various subsidiary bodies. They are iCar Asia Pte Ltd., iCar Asia Management Services
Sdn Bhd, iCar Asia Sdn Bhd, and Netyield Sdn Bhd and so on.
The chief purpose of this company is to enable their customers for buying products
successfully. The other purpose of this ICAR is to own and sell various automotive vehicles
throughout markets of ASEAN (Masron & Naseem, 2017). There vision is to connect sellers
and buyers of those automotive vehicles, successfully. Hence, they try to be the most trusted
and biggest automotive platform in ASEAN.
Customers:
The company has noticeable market opportunity throughout ASEAN. It has
potentiality to connect over 600 million consumers of car with car sellers. Through their
online websites, the company has presently reached over 8 million car buyers (icarasia.com,
2018). ICAR has a strong position in ASEAN markets for various reasons. They have
established strong brands in three markets, consistent consumers and listing leadership via
their RMS. Their core strategy is to develop worldwide customer experiences that enable
them to win in their chief markets.

5BUSINESS STUDY REPORT OF ICAR ASIA LTD
Competitors:
ICAR has some online competitors in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. These are all
classified websites. In Malaysia, Mudah.my is the competitor of ICAR. In Thailand,
Olx.co.th, Kaidee.com and PantipMarket.com are the competing website of this company.
Moreover, in Indonesia, the company also has three competitors. These are Olx.co.id,
Berniga.com and Kaskus.co.id. Those sites are more demanding and attractive to buyers who
do not want to buy cars (Icarasia.com, 2018). They provide cheaper products, for example,
motorbikes with low cost and scooters. Moreover, ICAR is also facing a direct competition
with a Berlin based company in Indonesia. The name of this e-commerce company is Rocket
Internet. However, this company cannot dominate mobil123.com.
The report can analyze the market condition of ICAR ASIA Ltd. from above. The
company is facing a perfectly competitive market environment. There are large number of
buyers for car and other motor vehicles. On the other side, the number of sellers for those
vehicles is also large. ICAR, including all other newspapers and online websites, provide
classified information of various motor vehicles (Kolmar & Hoffmann, 2018). Each customer
can know the price details of a particular product through searching online websites.
Moreover, the company offers cars, which have other substitutes like scooter, bikes and other
motor vehicles. As the company operates their business through online portals, there are no
barriers for other companies to enter or exit from this online dealing industry. Each company
will face elastic demand curve. As there are other portals that offer same products, ICAR
cannot increase their price level. If they do so, demand of their products will fall
significantly. Hence, to increase their revenue, the company needs to operate carefully with
some unique business strategy. Otherwise, they will lose their leadership position in

6BUSINESS STUDY REPORT OF ICAR ASIA LTD
Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. Therefore, to increase the amount of revenue and maintain
it continuously, each company bears some costs for advertisement.
Production costs and sales:
The company does not produce anything by themselves. Hence, they do not have any
production costs. However, the company pays income tax. Moreover, it bears depreciation
and amortization costs, employment related costs, websites, domain names, trademarks and
other intangible costs, advertisement and marketing costs, premises and infrastructure
expenses. There are some other financial costs of ICAR. These are offline production costs
and impairment of assets. Moreover, the company also bears some internal costs associated
with operating loss.
All cost structure of ICAR ASIA Ltd. can be divided into two parts. These are fixed
cost and variable costs. Employment related costs, intangible costs, advertisement and
marketing costs and operational costs of the company are variable costs. Rest of the costs of
this company is fixed costs. As the company is increasing their business, it bears more
variable costs compare to its fixed costs. They need more employees to operate their business
properly. They also bear more advertisement and marketing costs in Thailand, Malaysia and
Indonesia to promote their products. Hence, the company does not operate at its optimum
size. They are earring increasing amount of revenue (Icarasia.com, 2018). At the same time,
they are bearing costs for expanding their business. The company is also trying to adopt new
business strategies to improve their business conditions. ICAR are planning to expand their
business in some other countries. Hence, the company will bear more costs to expand their
business. They are not operating at an optimal size.

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Macro business environment:
Malaysia:
Malaysia is one of the best countries of Southeast Asia. The country is facing an
increasing trend of gross domestic product (GDP). At present, the country’s economic
condition was based on natural resources. After that, the country has faced a growing
diversity in various sectors. These are commerce, trade, tourism and science. Hence, the
country ranked 3rd largest economy of South Asia in 2015. Malaysia has different cultures
and ethnics. Those greatly influence the political conditions of this country. The overall
political condition of Malaysia is stable. However, it has corruption and cronyism in the
bureaucracy. This further influences the judiciary system of the country. The country has
already established an industrialized economy (Croissant & Lorenz, 2018). However, the
government of this country is trying to develop its economic conditions. Malaysia has
maintained a competitive economy in Asia and in the world, accordingly. The country
remains one of the biggest trading nations of Southeast Asia. It exports and imports various
commodities and contributes a significant part in international trade.
The government of Malaysia invests in airlines, banking, automobiles and media.
Moreover, the country has developed them technologically. Infrastructural condition is also
very good and that help various domestic and international investors to invest more (Masron
& Naseem, 2017). This further helps the country to develop economically. The employment
opportunity is also very good. Malaysia offers a young group of labor force, who are
educated and productive. The country also has huge opportunities for investment.

8BUSINESS STUDY REPORT OF ICAR ASIA LTD
Figure1: GDP growth rate (%) of Malaysia from 2006 to 2016
Source: (Data.worldbank.org, 2018)
In the above figure, GDP growth rate of Malaysia is shown. From this diagram it is
seen that the country’s GDP fell drastically, during 2007 and 2009 period. However, after
that year, the country recovered its economical condition and has maintained a stable GDP
growth rate.
Figure 2: Inflation, GDP deflator (annual %) of Malaysia from 2006 to 2016
Source: (Data.worldbank.org, 2018)
Malaysia’s inflation rate is shown in the above figure. This figure shows that the
country is facing a lower rate of inflation. This rate has not fluctuated significantly, since
2010.

9BUSINESS STUDY REPORT OF ICAR ASIA LTD
Figure 3: Unemployment rate Malaysia (2006-2016)
Source: (Tradingeconomics.com, 2018)
The unemployment rate of Malaysia was low since 2011. However, after 2016, the
country is facing an increasing rate of unemployment. However this rate is not fluctuating
significantly. Hence, the country is facing almost a stable economical condition.
After improving economic conditions, new car market of Malaysia has improved after
2016 (Masron & Naseem, 2017). The company has launched their first new car expo. They
receive good outcomes for various car manufacturers and also achieve small profit for the
company. The number of dealers has also increased. In Malaysia, ICAR has a small amount
of business and is trying to enhance the share of new car loan organizations.
Thailand:
Thailand faced various political disturbances for decades. However, despite those
political disturbances, it is the second largest economy of Southeast Asia. The country is
chiefly depending on agriculture and heavy industry sectors. The economic condition of this
country is not so well. Moreover, it has poor labor force. This is because labor force and
adequate opportunity for job training is very low (Bjarnegård, Brounéus & Melander, 2017).

10BUSINESS STUDY REPORT OF ICAR ASIA LTD
As the country cannot match the huge demand of global economy and cannot compete in the
world market, foreign investors do not invest more. Maximum citizens of this country are
older compare to other countries.
Figure 4: Inflation, GDP deflator (annual %) of Thailand from 2006 to 2016
Source: (Data.worldbank.org, 2018)
Thailand has faced huge fluctuation in its inflation rate since 2006. This rate
fluctuated significantly. In 2015, this inflation rate decreased by a small amount. However,
after this year, inflation rate has increased.
Figure5: GDP growth rate (%) of Thailand from 2006 to 2016

11BUSINESS STUDY REPORT OF ICAR ASIA LTD
Source: (Data.worldbank.org, 2018)
In the above figure, growth rate of Thailand is shown. The GDP trend of this country
has changed drastically. The country has faced huge ups and downs for last 10 years. After
2014, the country’s GDP has increased by a small amount. Hence, the economic condition of
this country is not stable. The country is facing huge disturbance in their GDP growth rate.
Figure 6: Unemployment rate Thailand (2006-2016)
Source: (Tradingeconomics.com, 2018)
The unemployment rate of Thailand has also fluctuated drastically. However, it
maintains a small amount of unemployment level since 2010. ICAR starts new subscription
bundles in this country by lifting the usage level and other products of premium
advertisements.
Indonesia:
The government of Indonesia faces huge challenges to improve its domestic transition
and makes it economically stable. The country has low costs of labor, growing working force.
Moreover, the political condition of this country is stable. Hence, foreign investors invest
huge amount of money. The three chief investors in this country’s economy are Singapore,
Japan and United States (Williams, 2017). The new president of Indonesia feels the need for
investing money in transportation and communications sectors. Hence, the new government

12BUSINESS STUDY REPORT OF ICAR ASIA LTD
focuses on infrastructure development. The president also takes some steps to modify
political condition of Indonesia as corruption is the basic challenge for the country. The
central government has also planned to modernize other economical sectors to develop
country’s economic conditions. These are agriculture and fishing, shipbuilding,
manufacturing and tourism. However, the country cannot modernize them quickly. The chief
reasons behind this are corruption and poor governmental rules. The country is considered ad
free economy by most international standards (Masron & Naseem, 2017). Moreover, the
judicial system is unsafe to political interference.
Figure 7: GDP growth rate (%) of Indonesia from 2006 to 2016
Source: (Data.worldbank.org, 2018)
In the above diagram, GDP growth rate of Indonesia is shown. The country was
facing a decreasing GDP growth rate since 2010. After 2015, the rate has increased by a
small portion. The economic condition is weak compare to other countries. However, this
growth trend is stable.

13BUSINESS STUDY REPORT OF ICAR ASIA LTD
Figure 8: Inflation, GDP deflator (annual %) of Indonesia from 2006 to 2016
Source: (Data.worldbank.org, 2018)
Inflation rate of this country is also very low. Indonesia faced a huge amount
of inflation in 2008. However, after this year, the inflation rate decreased noticeably. Hence,
this situation is good for the country’s economic condition and for all business organizations,
as well.
Figure 9: Unemployment rate Indonesia (2006-2016)
Source: (Tradingeconomics.com, 2018)

14BUSINESS STUDY REPORT OF ICAR ASIA LTD
The unemployment rate of this country is also very low. This rate has decreased since
2008. This situation is also good for every business organizations.
GDP growth trend, inflation rate and unemployment rate can greatly influence a
country’s economical and business conditions. Increasing amount of GDP indicates that the
country is growing steadily. This will further increase the purchasing power of all citizens.
Low level of inflation will indicate a stable and lower price level for all products (Young &
Pagliari, 2017). On the other hand, low level of unemployment rate will indicate good
purchasing power of each citizen. Hence, these entire factors can greatly increase the demand
of any product of a company. This is also affective for ICAR ASIA Ltd. The demand for car
will depend on those factors. Moreover the company can take proper business decisions
based on those political and economical conditions of Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand.
Hence, after analyzing economic and political conditions of Malaysia, Thailand and
Indonesia, ICAR can feel a good market condition for them. As each country’s economic and
political conditions are almost stable, the company can easily trade over there. Moreover, the
government of each country is focusing on infrastructural development (Masron & Naseem,
2017). As a result, people will demand more vehicles for communication. As a result, the
company will face an increasing demand for their products in those countries. On the other
side, the government of each country is trying to develop their economical conditions by
helping various business organizations and is trying to increase the number of investors.
Hence, ICAR will get more developed markets in coming years. The company is planning to
begin new car expos. They are also planning to increase the amount of money by their
website in this country.
As car is an essential good for most of the people, the demand of that product will be
increased by increasing GDP growth. Moreover, governmental support and increasing

15BUSINESS STUDY REPORT OF ICAR ASIA LTD
amount of foreign direct investments will help the company to sale their products more.
However, to expand their business, ICAR will bear some costs. The company’s increasing
amount of revenue can offset that amount of costs. However, Thailand has an unstable
economic condition. It needs more time develop their political conditions. If the country gets
a good political condition, then the business sector of this country will develop further. As
every country is trying to enhance their business sectors to develop their economic
conditions, the demand of car will be increased further.
Sustainability practice of ICAR:
Business strategy:
ICAR ASIA Ltd. has competitors in Australian market. These are Carsales.com Ltd. it
is also a stock exchange listed company (ASX: CAR). The company has replaced classified
advertisement of newspapers. The company has best experience of class users, good
partnership with various car dealers. Moreover, it adds new features for private car sellers and
buyers. ICAR is adopting this business strategy and applying this in Malaysia, Thailand and
Indonesia. For ICAR, business risk by adopting this model is low as it has already proven as
successful (icarasia.com, 2018). The number of internet users is increasing significantly in
these three countries. Hence, the company has great opportunity to expand their business
further and has positive business opportunities.
ICAR is maintain a good relation with car dealers of Jakarta and gives them
opportunity to easily advertise their products on their ICAR Asia platform. The company has
also introduced its new RMS product in Indonesia. This is a free product aims to provide
every car dealer some advantages. They can manage their inventories, manage their
advertisements and also can upload themselves.

16BUSINESS STUDY REPORT OF ICAR ASIA LTD
Environmental regulation:
The ICAR group has taken some responsibilities to manage environmental matters.
They have reviewed all important matters related to environmental risks (Icarasia.com, 2018).
They do not have any legal obligation for taking corrective action related to environmental
matters.
Conclusion:
This business study report has discussed on various important topics related to
business environment of ICAR ASIA Ltd. After analyzing those, the report can draw an
appropriate conclusion. The company is based on Australia. However, they operate their
business in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. Each company has their own political and
economical conditions. The Government of each country is dealing with those and trying to
develop their business organizations. Hence, the company has positive prospects for their
business in near future. The company also has various competitors, who are operating same
types of business. However, ICAR is still leading their business in those countries. The
company has facing an increasing trend of growth. Being an essential good, the demand of
car will not fall. However, the company’s revenue can be affected adversely as it operates
under a perfectly competitive environment. Hence, to promote their business, the company
needs to bear its advertisement cost. The company also bears some other costs as well.
However, the profit margin for ICAR is not decreasing. Hence, business study report is
essential for every firm to analyze the business environment, where it operates. It will also
help ICAR ASIA Ltd. to operate their business in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. The
company can compete perfectly with other companies and can apply new strategies.

17BUSINESS STUDY REPORT OF ICAR ASIA LTD
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18BUSINESS STUDY REPORT OF ICAR ASIA LTD
Inflation, GDP deflator (annual %) | Data. (2018). Data.worldbank.org., from
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.DEFL.KD.ZG?
end=2016&locations=MY&start=2006
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https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.DEFL.KD.ZG?
end=2016&locations=TH&start=2006
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Microeconomics (pp. 27-41). Springer, Cham.
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(2018). Tradingeconomics.com., from
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Cooperation?. Taylor & Francis.

19BUSINESS STUDY REPORT OF ICAR ASIA LTD
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