New Delhi, Jul 26 (PTI) Automobile marketplace Droom is betting on its 'Germ Shield' service to be a major revenue driver this fiscal as it looks to tap into the estimated Rs 1,250-crore anti-microbial treatment market in the country amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Germ Shield service, which was launched in March, offers an anti-microbial coating for vehicles, homes and offices.

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"In our view, sanitisation, cleaning and surface protection is estimated to be Rs 5,000 crore market annually and anti-microbial is around Rs 1,250 crore, it is a new kind of category that is shaping up. We think in full 12 months of operations, this will be the primary contributor to our Eco business that will grow to Rs 50 crore in revenue," Droom founder and CEO Sandeep Aggarwal said.

He added that Eco portfolio -- which includes vehicle inspection and certification and repair services -- had clocked revenue of Rs 8 crore last fiscal.

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"As more enterprises reopen business and people rejoin the workplace, the uptake of the service is expected to go up. Germ Shield has helped Droom go beyond the automobile category. We are sanitising shops, fleets of cars and bikes for various players as well as residential complexes," he said.

Droom has launched the service now in 40 cities and is seeing huge demand from Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad. There is also demand from smaller cities like Ahmedabad, Pune and Jaipur, he said.

The company is scaling up the presence of its Eco authorised centres across the country.

"We have about 100 Eco authorised centres and the road map is to add 150 more this year and another 250 next year. These are through the franchise route," Aggarwal said.

Asked about the impact on business, Aggarwal said the company was previously aiming for USD 2-2.5 billion in gross GMV and USD 55-60 million in net revenue.

"When COVID-19 happened, we were doing Rs 660 crore in monthly GMV and in April-May, it was literally zero because of lockdown. In June, we started seeing recovery even though we are far away from full recovery. Around October, 60-70 per cent of recovery would happen, early indicators like growth in traffic, leads and listings have gone up," he said.

He said the revenues for this year would be "significantly lower" than its target.

Concerns around safety could keep people away from using public transport and ride-sharing platforms, which could in turn boost sales of used cars. Such a trend would be beneficial for the company's used automobile category, he said.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)