Rider Gate revs up bike sales

PETALING JAYA: Every year, about 100,000 new bikes are sold in Malaysia, with the second-hand motorbike market accounting for about 10% to 12%.

The bulk of the second-hand transactions now are between buyers and dealers, although there are some transactions via platforms like Mudah.my and iMotorbike.

Enter Rider Gate, an online marketplace for second-hand motorbikes from Ramssol Group Bhd. It is not about to become a unicorn any time soon, but has the potential to.

Ramssol’s management said the platform/app has had a slow start since its soft launch last year, undertaking about two to three transactions a day.

The tech-focused group hasn’t really pushed the platform to the public aggressively as it does not want to oversell and fall short of user expectations.

There are still some technicalities it needs to address.

The success of the platform could very much depend on complementing its service capability by getting government approval to undertake ownership transfers and e-grants of the traded motorbikes.

Ramssol’s group managing director and chief executive director Datuk Cllemant Tan Chee Seng tells Starbiz 7 that service capability would greatly enhance Rider Gate’s effectiveness and make it far more appealing to the public.

News reports suggest that the Transport Ministry is working with the Road Transport Department to enable mobile applications for transactions of used motorcycles to be integrated with the mySIKAP system for simpler, faster and safer transactions.

Market potential

There are some 16.7 million motorcycles registered in the country and the second-hand market accounts for about 1.7 million of the total registered two wheelers annually.

Tan said Rider Gate is attempting to carve a market share with better price discovery and other complementary services like insurance, financing and inspections services.

Its service will also help potential buyers and sellers from falling victim to scammers and syndicates – a real problem in the second-hand market.

The ability to do the ownership transfers and e-grant of the traded bikes could give Rider Gate an edge over its rivals.

Ramssol’s aim is to make Rider Gate into the Carsome of the second-hand motorcycle trade.

While the current transaction numbers may be small, Ramssol plans to see that number rise to about 200,000 annually. This can be achieved with the help of more aggressive marketing, according to Tan.

Part of Ramssol group’s autotech segment offering, the Rider Gate platform is much like Carsome’s online platform for used cars, but unlike the latter which buys the used cars and then resells them, Rider Gate will only be a market place for willing parties to transact.

Hence, the capital involved from Ramssol is much lower.

Go big or go home

“We spent about RM20mil developing the platform, all of that money coming from internal sources. Rider Gate is basically a new product launch, it’s very niche in the market. We have a good clean road ahead,” Tan says.

The platform charges the buyer and seller RM50 each and Ramssol, post-transaction costs, can make about RM80 or so according to him. It also makes commission from complementary services like insurance and financing support.

The Rider Gate platform is easy to use. A motorbike owner who wants to sell his/her bike can register on the platform and make an appointment to go to any of the platform’s registered dealer outlets across the country.

The dealer will do a 31 points inspection of the vehicle within eight minutes. The dealer would then make an offer and, if rejected by the owner, photos of the bike will be uploaded on the platform and given a rating based on the inspection.

Dealers from the Malaysia Motorcycle & Scooter Dealers Association across the country could then bid on the offered item for seven days.

If the motorbike owner is not satisfied with the price offered, the bike will be offered to the public to bid over a 30-day period.

Tan is confident about the platform’s potential.

“It’s quite a hill to climb, from transacting one bike a day to 100 is very difficult, but to scale up from 100 to 10,000 it will be much faster. I need to make it successful here (Malaysia) and honestly speaking it’s a very ambitious project – it’s either go big or go home,” said Tan.

If Rider Gate reaches its target scale in Malaysia, Tan said Ramssol plans to take the platform regional to Indonesia (132 million motorbikes as of 2023) and Thailand (22 million) where the two-wheeler market is much larger.

Moving this intellectual property (IP) into the markets could be smooth as Ramssol already has a business presence in the region, marketing its human capital management (HCM) solutions, student management solutions, information technology staff augmentation services and technology applications.

Growth angle

At present, the Malaysian market accounts for about 43.23% of Ramssol’s total revenue, while Indonesia contributes about 27.23% and Thailand 15.72%. Singapore contributed 13.82% of total revenue in financial year 2023 (FY23).

For FY24 ended Dec 31, 2024, Ramssol’s core HCM business saw its revenue and earning double year-on-year, reaching RM61.7mil and RM13.5mil, respectively.

Tan says the core businesses will continue to anchor Ramssol’s performance in FY25.

Maybank Investment Bank, in a recent report, noted that with about 20% net profit margin, Rider Gate could potentially drive secondary earnings growth for Ramssol in the years ahead.

It maintains its RM1 a share target price and “buy” rating on the stock.

Tan said if Ramssol is able to see sustainable growth on Rider Gate’s fundamentals, it could have a roadmap to initial public offering on the Nasdaq within two years, or even sell a stake in the IP to strategic investors if the need for fresh funds arises.