ACCC clears eBay acquisition of Cox car ads business
Competition watchdog approves merger of eBay’s Gumtree with the owner of Carsguide and Autotrader websites.
Australia's competition regulator has given the green light to eBay’s acquisition of Cox Automotive Media Solutions, which owns Carsguide and Autotrader websites, amid rising competition from Facebook.
Australian Competition & Consumer Commission chair Rod Sims said the deal is unlikely to lead to a "substantial lessening of competition", including in the supply of online automotive classifieds in Australia.
"Therefore it was not necessary to consider the public benefit limb of the authorisation test,” Mr Sims said in a statement on Thursday.
eBay announced the tie-up last December, with the group proposing to merge its Gumtree Australia business with Cox Automotive Media’s operations.
Together, Autotrader, which has about 2300 dealers and 90,000 listings, and Gumtree, which has around 1800 dealers and 80,000 private-party listings, “provide a compelling car-buying offering and enable Gumtree to develop a more competitive and attractive platform for Australian consumers” eBay said in December.
The ACCC said Carsales was the leading provider of online automotive classified advertising in Australia and is a significant competitive constraint on eBay’s business Gumtree and Cox Media. Facebook Marketplace was also a growing competitor to Gumtree and Cox Media in the supply of online automotive classifieds services.
“Our investigation showed that Carsales and Facebook Marketplace are likely to continue to provide significant competition in online automotive classifieds after Gumtree acquires Cox Media,” Mr Sims said.
“We also found that Gumtree and Cox Media focus on different segments, with Gumtree focusing on private seller listings and Cox Media focusing on dealer listings.”
The competition watchdog also investigated the impact of the acquisition on the supply of online display advertising on digital automotive content providers, and was satisfied the tie-up is unlikely to result in reduced competition.
“Many advertisers use third parties to place targeted advertisements to individual consumers based on browsing history data on a wide range of websites.
"Further, we found there are a range of other digital automotive content providers where direct advertisers could place automotive-related advertising, including Drive, Carsales, GoAuto and digital versions of automotive print publications,” Mr Sims said.
A Gumtree spokeswoman welcomed the ACCC's decision, as the group now looks to complete the deal by the end of May.
"The acquisition marks a natural progression in our vertical strategy for the automotive category and will strengthen our offering to customers, providing increased access to listings and automotive research, reviews and content that will enrich our customer experience and grow our dealer network," she said.
Gumtree is a division of eBay Classifieds Holding, which is owned by eBay. Cox Media is a subsidiary of Cox Automotive, which is 70 per cent owned by Cox Automotive International Sarl and 30 per cent owned by DealerMotive Ltd, a consortium of Australian dealer groups.
No financial details have been publicly disclosed.
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