Developing a European trading platform
Like many companies in the first Internet founder generation, AutoSout24's success story started off quite modestly: 350 cars on offer and 50 visitors a day was how everything began back in 1998. Six months before that, Dr. Nicola Carbonari left McKinsey in Munich and founded MasterCar – AutoScout24's predecessor – as a classic one-man company. His colleague at McKinsey, Dr. Nikolas Deskovic recognized the virtual used car market's potential immediately and joined him. After six months' intensive setup work, they had reached 50,000 page views, 10,000 vehicles on the database and 50 member dealers. They took on their first staff.
AutoScout24 becomes known
That very same year, AutoScout24 started implementing its international strategy. In November, the company opened a subsidiary in Italy, followed soon afterwards by Spain and holding in autopool in Switzerland. The platform became part of the Scout24 group at the same time. The first TV campaign on Deutsches Sport Fernsehen DSF (now sport1) began in 1999, with great success: there were 400,000 page views in April, showing how quickly the company was becoming well known.
Step
by step to a European player
The founders continued their international approach: AutoScout24 marked the new millennium by acquiring car24 of Belgium. That was followed by a holding in auto-online in the Netherlands and opening new companies in France and Austria at the beginning of 2001. The Eastern European market was also becoming increasingly interesting: used car searches also started in Poland, Rumania and Bulgaria.
Through
service to success
As well as continuing to develop the trading platform, AutoScout24 has been expanding the data and dialog it offers systematically. Since 2001, AutoScout24's editorial team in the online magazine has been reporting on the latest new cars and their own vehicle tests. With over 1.5 m subscribers, AutoScout24-Magazin offers the largest circulation independent automotive newsletter in Europe. Opening AutoWissen24.de enables visitors to the forum to chat and find about all vehicle models in the catalogue. And, every year, car fans from all over Europe vote in the Internet Auto Award for their favorite cars in different categories to win the CAROLINA trophy. And vehicle dealers can also call on a broad range of services through to specialist sales training at AutoScout24 Academy.
Milestones
at a glance:
1997
MasterCar
AG, AutoScout24's predecessor, founded in Munich, Germany
Finance company IVC takes a
DM 500,000 holding
1998
Italian
and Spanish companies founded
Holding in autopool Switzerland
1999
MasterCar AG changes name to AutoScout24 GmbH
User numbers exceed
400,000 page views for the first time
2000
Acquires
car24 Belgium
Holding in auto-online in the Netherlands
2001
French
subsidiary founded
Austrian subsidiary founded
TruckScout24 founded
Acquisition
of FairCar
AutoScout24 expanded as information portal with current online magazine and
newsletter
2002
Partnership
between Allianz Fahrzeugbörse vehicle exchange and AutoScout24
AutoScout24 breaks even
in Europe
2003
Partnership with ADAC
Portal partnership with T-Online
2004
Scout24
Group acquired by T-Online International AG (now part of Deutsche Telekom AG)
AutoScout24's
share of vehicle transactions in Europe exceeds 20%
Now more than 350 staff throughout
Europe
2005
Internet
Auto Award launched as public prize
2006
AutoScout24
Academy founded, specializing in Internet sales
2007
AutoScout24's
Web presence throughout Europe is given a new face
Start of the initiative “Sicherer
Autokauf im Internet” (safe online car shopping)
Partnership with major Polish online
car portal Gratka.pl
2008
AutoScout24
celebrates its 10th birthday
Used car searches start in Poland, Rumania and Bulgaria
Portal
partnership with ViaMichelin
2009
Opens
AutoWissen24.de as information platform and forum on everything to do with cars
AutoScout24
mobile: AutoScout24 iPhone application launched (over 200,000 downloads in first six months)
AutoScout24
is Germany's most used vehicle market (WNK, ACTA 2009)
2010
Homepage
redesigned with extended functionalities
Current portal partnerships in Germany: ADAC,
T-Online, United Internet Media (GMX, web.de, 1&1), viaMichelin (in five countries), N-TV
