9:17 am, April 26, 2022
Volvo has taken a minority stake in Carwow as it aims to learn from the platform in its ambitions to improve online sales.
The Swedish carmaker has already been making headway with it’s online transition, and aims to sell half of its cars online by 2025.
The Financial Times reported the news this morning, saying that the investment from Volvo’s tech fund is thought to be in the ‘tens of millions of pounds’ according to ‘a person with knowledge of the transaction’.
Magnus Fredin, head of Volvo’s online business, told the Financial Times: ‘This is a way for us to learn and accelerate our online transition.’
He explained that learning from Carwow’s online presence, social media and particularly it’s video reach were important for the brand but added that this was not about ‘sidestepping’ car dealers.
Fredin told the FT: ‘It is important to stick out in the world today. We need to adapt the content of what the customers are looking for.
‘Customers are intrigued by having various parts of the process online, but when doing a test drive they want to do one at a retail location.
‘This is not about sidestepping the retailers, it’s for us co-operating with a platform with customer needs that we can learn from.’
He explained that already before the pandemic, 95 per cent of car buying journeys were beginning online, but the impact of the lockdowns was that consumers became willing to transact online too.
Carwow CEO James Hind wrote on LinkedIn about the investment: ‘Great to have Volvo joining on our journey.
‘Carwow has had a great relationship working with Volvo for many years. They’re hugely ambitious, and one of the clear leaders in the shift to electric and to online sales.
‘Volvo is our second OEM to invest, joining Mercedes-Benz who invested in 2019.’
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