Carousell’s Chief Strategy Officer Shing Tai Leung
Thirteen years after launching as an upstart classifieds app, Carousell Group has finally hit positive EBITDA. FY25 revenue climbed 18 per cent to US$141 million, nearly tripling since FY21. At the same time, recommerce, the company’s resale-and-trade-in engine, grew 40 per cent to become 45 per cent of total revenue.
The group now runs 29 physical stores across Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Indonesia, claims that AI can write a listing in three seconds, and says over 99 per cent of transactions are completed scam-free.
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It’s an impressive scorecard on paper. But underneath the milestone lies a company quietly rewiring its entire business model — trading a capital-light classifieds engine for a capital-intensive recommerce and physical-retail bet, all while leaning on AI to fend off deep-pocketed rivals like Shopee, Lazada, and Facebook Marketplace.
So is this profitability real, or IPO-ready packaging? Is classifieds being sidelined? And can a 13-year-old marketplace still call itself a “transformation story”?
e27 put these questions directly to Carousell Group Chief Strategy Officer Shing Tai Leung.
Below is the edited version:
You’ve reached EBITDA profitability in FY25, but your press release stops short of sharing a net profit figure or your path to it. Is EBITDA profitability a genuine inflexion point, or is this milestone being used to manage investor expectations ahead of a potential IPO or fundraise?
Positive EBITDA is a meaningful milestone for us because it reflects the effectiveness of the structural transformation we’ve driven over several years. We’ve focused on growing revenue streams, expanding recommerce and improving operational efficiency and discipline, all while continuing to invest for long-term growth.
This is by no means the goal, though. We’re confident in our growth strategy and operating leverage, and we continue to make progress on our profitability journey. We have a strong balance sheet and significant opportunities ahead as recommerce continues to grow across the region.
Revenue grew 18 per cent to US$141 million, which is impressive, but recommerce now accounts for 45 per cent of total revenue. That means your original classifieds business is essentially a shrinking share of the pie. Is the classifieds model dying and are you quietly pivoting away from it?
Both businesses continue to play important roles and serve different user needs. The overall pie is growing — classifieds continues to grow, while recommerce grows at a faster pace as a second engine of growth.
Our classifieds marketplace remains a foundational, healthy, high-margin business that continues to generate meaningful engagement and revenue. At the same time, recommerce’s growth is validation that users want trusted, seamless transaction experiences, particularly in higher-value categories like luxury, mobile phones and fashion.
Also Read: Carousell acquires Ox Street to double down on its re-commerce efforts in Greater SEA
Recommerce expands the ways people can buy and sell on Carousell, letting us serve a broader range of users and use cases. This is a multi-year transformation to add a second monetisation engine on top of core classifieds and bring more resilience to the business overall.
You operate 29 physical stores across Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Offline retail is capital-intensive and notoriously difficult to scale. What’s the unit economics story here? Are these stores profitable, and how many do you plan to open in FY26?
Physical stores are an augmentation of our omnichannel recommerce strategy. These stores give our users greater trust and convenience as they buy, sell and trade in items. We’ve seen that stores meaningfully improve customer experience and contribute to higher transaction volumes in categories like luxury, fashion and mobile phones.
We remain disciplined in our expansion and evaluate opportunities market by market. Rather than targeting a specific number of stores, we’re focused on expanding where customer demand and economics support sustainable long-term growth.
Recommerce grew 40 per cent YoY, but from what base? The “Sell to Carousell” model means you’re now taking on inventory risk that a pure classifieds platform never would. How are you managing that risk, and what happens if secondhand demand softens?
Recommerce today represents 45 per cent of Group revenue, reflecting sustained growth. Inventory is only one part of our broader recommerce ecosystem, which includes marketplace transactions, integrated payments, shipping and services. Where we do operate inventory-based models, we rely heavily on pricing data, demand signals and operational discipline to manage inventory efficiently. Sell to Carousell also gives a great seller experience to those who are time-starved.
More broadly, I remain confident in the long-term growth of recommerce. Consumers are increasingly looking for trusted, value-driven and sustainable ways to shop, and I believe those structural trends will continue over time.
You claim AI helps ensure over 99 per cent of transactions are completed without a scam incident, a remarkable stat. But scam complaints on platforms like Carousell remain a recurring headline in Singapore media. How do you reconcile that 99 per cent figure with persistent user trust issues on the ground?
The 99 per cent figure refers to the proportion of transactions completed scam-free. Achieving this requires a multi-layered approach that combines AI- and machine learning-based detection with human moderation, proactive sweeps and community reporting to identify and remove scams, prohibited listings and bad actors.
That said, online platform safety is an industry-wide challenge. Scam prevention is a constant race against increasingly sophisticated bad actors, which is why we continue to strengthen our technology, policies and user education. This includes tightening our defences against phishing attempts that try to move conversations off-platform, as well as preventing repeat account creation by bad actors.
Beyond proactive detection, we also make it safer for users to transact through integrated payments and shipping, alongside our certified programme for higher-value transactions that require additional trust and assurance.
Also Read: Carousell enters unicorn club after a new US$100M round led by Korea’s STIC Investments
We also work closely with law enforcement and government agencies across our markets, because tackling scams requires industry-wide collaboration. This is a long-term commitment, and we’ll continue investing in trust and safety to make Carousell one of the safest places to buy and sell secondhand.
“List with AI” generates a listing in three seconds. That’s a feature, not a moat. Lazada, Shopee, and Facebook Marketplace can replicate this quickly. Where exactly is AI creating a defensible competitive advantage for Carousell that larger, better-funded rivals cannot easily copy?
The way I see it, we start by understanding what our users want and then work backwards to find the best solution. Using AI is one of the ways we solve those problems faster and more effectively, and I see it as a foundational capability across Carousell Group. AI is an ongoing journey, and we’re continuously improving it to make it more accurate, efficient and useful for our community.
What’s unique about Carousell is that the real advantage doesn’t come from AI alone. It comes from combining AI with more than a decade of proprietary transaction data and a deep understanding of secondhand commerce. That enables us to build AI capabilities purpose-built for our classifieds marketplace and recommerce, delivering more relevant experiences for buyers and sellers.
Carousell has been around for over a decade, yet you’re still describing your business as a “transformation.” At what point does a 13-year-old company stop transforming and start defending? What does your competitive moat actually look like in 2026?
If you compare the Carousell app when we first started with what it is today, the transformation is clear. Building a platform is never a one-time effort; it’s a continuous journey of evolving alongside our users and improving the experience over time.
Over the years, we’ve transformed from primarily a listings marketplace, where buyers and sellers connected and arranged transactions on their own, into a broader recommerce ecosystem with integrated payments, logistics, authentication, physical stores and AI-powered experiences. Achieving positive EBITDA reflects the success of that multi-year transformation.
Today, our competitive advantage comes from combining a large and engaged community, trusted transaction services, omnichannel capabilities and AI that enhances both the customer experience and operational efficiency.
Like any tech company, we’ll continue to evolve and reinvent ourselves. Just as mobile transformed marketplaces a decade ago, I believe AI presents the next opportunity to reimagine what Carousell can be.
You operate across seven markets under eight different brands. That’s a complex, fragmented portfolio. Wouldn’t Carousell be a stronger, more focused business if it rationalised some of these brands rather than continuing to spread resources thin?
The nature of our region is that it’s diverse, so it’s important for us to have brands that serve different customer segments and market needs. While consumers may interact with different brands, many of the underlying technology, AI capabilities and operational infrastructure are shared across the Group. This lets us leverage common platforms and economies of scale while continuing to serve local market preferences effectively.
The recommerce and circular economy narrative is compelling for investors and the press, but Southeast Asia is still a predominantly “new goods” consumer culture. What’s your honest assessment of how long it will take for secondhand to become genuinely mainstream in markets like Indonesia or Vietnam? And what’s Carousell’s role in accelerating that shift?
I believe recommerce will continue to grow across Southeast Asia, which is precisely why we’re excited about the opportunity ahead.
We’re already seeing strong consumer adoption driven by affordability, sustainability and increasing trust in buying secondhand. While adoption will vary across markets, I believe the long-term direction is clear.
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Our role is to make secondhand buying and selling trusted, convenient and seamless. By investing in authentication, payments, logistics, physical touchpoints and AI, we’re helping remove the friction that’s traditionally prevented more consumers from participating in recommerce.
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