B2B cross-border automotive trading platform Trade X said Thursday (June 2) it was expanding and enhancing the reach of its “brain” platform, which provides insights into global vehicle availability and valuation.
To do so, the Toronto-based company said it was strengthening its data science team, who will focus on employing the platform’s data and analytical capabilities to Trade X’s strategy of adding new international trading corridors.
Wally Trenholm, the company’s chief data scientist and architect of the “Brain” platform, will add another data professional to his team, with the hiring of Maithili Mavinkurve as vice president of data. Her job will be to oversee the Trade X data asset portfolio to better support integration and improve how dealers buy and sell pre-owned vehicles.
“As supply chains undergo a once-in-a-generation reconfiguration, cross-border delivery has become more complex,” Trade X Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Luciano Butera said in a news release. “TRADE X is at the forefront of import/export modernization by removing the friction in global vehicle trading, creating new and better options to connect automotive dealers globally, and reducing counterparty risk.”
The company connects pools of demand in emerging markets to a worldwide supply network, addressing a lack of availability in smaller jurisdictions. As more buyers and sellers gain the ability to move inventory across international borders, Trade X says it is “building its market share while expanding the total addressable market.”
See also: Localized Payments Put Developing World’s Auto Dealers in the Driver’s Seat
PYMNTS spoke with Butera recently about the demand for vehicles in developing nations in West Africa, Latin America, and Asia, where a lack of auto factories and public transit have made older gas-powered cars sought-after commodities.
“In many of these countries, a rising middle class is eager to own automobiles and willing to pay top dollar to purchase even significantly older models,” Butera told PYMNTS.
To illustrate that demand, he said that between 2015 and 2020, around 23 million light-duty vehicles were exported to 208 countries and territories from the four chief exporters: the EU, Japan, South Korea and the U.S.
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