Zoopla Property Group this morning reported record revenue of almost £100m along with a “robust” performance, saying that it has enjoyed 12 consecutive months of UK agency membership growth.
It reported a rise of 4% in agency members, to 12,956 – still down from the number of 16,000 or so it had prior to the launch of OnTheMarket
Overall, it reported a rise of 5% over the past year to 16,858 property partners.
Traffic averaged 44.8m visits per month, and Zoopla generated 11m property leads.
It also said that property listings grew to 854,000, reflecting that increase.
Reporting on the six months ending March 31, the group said its revenues were up 130%, to £96.4m. Its revenue from its comparisons business was £57.7m, while revenue from its property services business was down 8% – from £42m in H1 of last year, to £38.7m.
The group, which bought the Property Software Group for £75m in April – after the end of this trading period – will be paying an interim dividend of 1.5p per share.
Zoopla said the acquisition of the Property Software Group would “transform our relationship with property professionals, providing the UK’s first end-to-end business solution which will enable them to both generate increased revenues and to engage more effectively with their clients”.
CEO Alex Chesterman said he was “delighted with the Group’s first half performance and our growth as we delivered both record revenues and adjusted EBITDA.
“We continue to lead innovation and further differentiate our offering in line with our mission to be the best resource for consumers when finding, moving or managing their home and to be the most effective partner for related businesses.”
He said: “We have launched a number of exciting new features for both consumers and professionals including our ‘running costs’ tool which helps our users understand the total costs of occupying any property.”
Today’s half year report said it expects “continued partner growth within the Property Services division”.
It said that this time a year ago, Zoopla had experienced “significant UK agency churn” as the result of the launch of OnTheMarket and “its restrictive one other portal rule”.
Advertising per agent has now grown by 2% to £361 per branch per office.
Comments (25)
STOP PRESS the use of information obtained via the internet and used by a third party for their financial benefit is to be outlawed by the EU. It would seem they have got wise to the antics of internet companies abuse of their customers data being an infringement of current EU directives and business protection.
“We continue to lead innovation…”
Help me here, please.
Since when did buying up companies left, right and centre to utilise their databases become ‘innovation’?
If it ever was, they were beaten to it in the industry by Black Horse, Prudential, Nationwide… the list goes on.
They’re actually extremely late to that particular table – although the fare on the table is now far more appetising, methinks…
Innovation is in the application and not just the invention.
The wheel was invented milleinia prior to the bicycle.
The whale swam the oceans millennia before the first harpoon was honed.
Your point being?
Your ‘input’ is probably too late to have any impact on this thread now.
You snooze: you lose.
Better luck next time.
ANY time, come to think of it…
I would love to here the list of things considered innovations and how those innovations benefit the paying customers.
Ahhh… dig and ye shall find.
Here’s the IMPORTANT stat for all Agents:
Agency Revenue H1 2016 – £27.8m; H1 2015 – £31.2m
That’s 11% down YoY.
Says.
It.
All.
I think you are missing the point that the comparable period in 2015 includes 3 months before the launch of OTM, hence a higher number of agents. On an adjusted basis (removing those agents from both 2015 and 2016’s numbers) revenues have increased 3%.
If I’m missing anything here, newagent, it isn’t what you’ve pointed out.
I’m just spreading it out – giving the Z-Team more posts to ‘Dislike’.
It’s my way of relieving their stress for them.
Someone had better tell all those fence sitters that OTM is the better long term outcome for agents rather than an RM / Z controlled industry.
Meanwhile my Z shares are doing nicely…
Zoopla Property Group PLC
LON: ZPLA – May 25, 10:28 AM GMT+1
324.20GBX17.10 (5.57%)
You have shares in Zoopla!?
So you buy Zoopla shares then spend the majority of your time telling people to list with OTM…
Pardon me PeeWee if I don’t follow any advice you give…ever, you silly boy.
Oh my dear boy (davidbamforth) it matters not a jot what you or I have to say, the world will still spin and no body cares.
Why wouldn’t I buy shares in Z and yet believe that OTM is the agents only sanctuary from RM & Z? Does that mean that RM & Z are not any good?
I don’t care much for football, but who made the better odds? Some favoured team at 2/1 or Leicester City at 5000/1? Going by your expert rule of thumb I can only support the favoured team and not place a bet on Leicester?
Indeed, one of us is a silly boy, but I am just not sure that silly boy is me.
That’s the revenue for the agency income which is down and the member numbers have steadied, but this is the report for the rest of the Group as well which is where the headline figures come from. In a nutshell, subscriptions have been hurt, revenue is up as a business due to uSwitch (their comparison services) and their Adreach software which sells the data gathered to targeted advertisers and corporate agents and they now have debt after buying Property Software Group but have income from those subscriptions. I would be intrigued to know how many realise what this latter business is….? This is from their report it might surprise how many other fees that agents are paying for in addition to their ads on Zoopla, how many knew ‘The Property Software Group is the UK’s largest supplier of software and workflow solutions to the property industry and its brand portfolio includes Alto, Jupix, CFP, Vebra, Core, Encore, MyPropertyFile and MoveIT.
All in all if you are an investor, these are encouraging numbers and there is a clever interweaved business milking the contents like crazy. If you are an agent, you are spending more and more on those who live off your data and hard earned fees! The corporates will love the development of the Adreach…for direct marketing purposes otherwise known as touting.
Nice to see the Z-Team are out of their meeting.
Come on, guys&gals – instead of sticking your tongues out, thumbs in ears and wiggling your fingers at me with petty ‘Dislikes’, grow some and actually debate.
After all – they’re paying you enough…
OHHHH… that clearly must have got through the thickest of skins…
…all we need now is ‘Digital Expert’ chipping in with the usual and we’ve got a full Hall.
D’OH!
I typed ‘full house’.
Darn this predictable keyboard…
Bad day yesterday was it?
Heck no – one of the best for a while, actually.
Every ‘Dislike’ is a point proved. A small result
Yesterday I was nibbling precisely the right ankles, it seems.
Bunny:Happy
I need a bit of help here, folks – my usually-okayish maths fails me:
‘It reported a rise of 4% in agency members’
+
‘Advertising per agent has now grown by 2%’
=
‘…the group said its revenues were up 130%’
Is it me – or are those statistics which even The Quirkster wouldn’t dare try to get past people’s ******** detectors?
Zoopla does get revenue from other sources does it not?
I dare say it does, Clarkuk – but none of that seems to be mentioned anywhere on reporting sites.
The inference here surely is that the increase is Agency-led – which it clearly isn’t.
As if anyone needed reminding ….. going by the obvious number of quick dislikes, Z reps have more time on their hands to pounce on anything that shows Z up for what it is and how many they are, all 15 of them. As to the story I see no gain on the High Street on my travels, just the competitions.
Maybe agents should now make the choice and go with the one portal. Recently when speaking to property buyers most of them were saying Zoopla and when showing me a property on their phone it was via Zoopla.
Quote from June 2009 “Robert you need to wake up and smell the coffee, you don’t understand the big picture”. It seems I did and I do, this story reinforces that.
It’s with those people with eyes still tightly shut and La-La ears hiked up to ‘Full Ignore’ level that the problem firmly lies, I’m afraid…