Rightmove: another massive leap in revenue thanks to ...

Rightmove has reported another very large leap in revenue in 2017 and a modest rise in agency and new home customers - however, leads to customers were down seven per cent on the previous year.

In figures reported to shareholders and the City this morning, the leading portal announced that overall revenue was up 11 per cent; operating profit increased 10 per cent.

The key ARPA figure - average revenue per advertiser - was up 10 per cent to £922 per month.

Its total of agency and new homes customers rose two per cent to 20,427 while it claimed a million UK residential properties advertised on its website - “is a significant stock advantage compared to any other UK portal” it says.

Traffic growth continued to soar with visits up four per cent averaging over 125m visits per month and ‘time on site’ unchanged at nearly one billion minutes per month. However, lets were down seven per cent on 2016

The portal says its market share of traffic across both desktop and mobile was 73 per cent with the mobile component even higher at 79 per cent.

This morning’s trading statement also says that despite visits rising for the 16th successive year the 43.6m leads for customers was actually seven per cent down on 2016.

In addition the portal admits that “the surge in lettings stock following the stamp duty increase for second properties in April 2016 meant for most of 2017 the lettings market was less frenetic giving potential tenants more choice. In these market conditions each tenant typically sends fewer leads as they are more assured of securing the property they want.”

"The UK public has once again moved with Rightmove, spending 11.7 billion minutes on Rightmove platforms in 2017. Our focus and innovation continue to make us the place that consumers turn to first and that property professionals turn to most often” says Peter Brooks-Johnson, the portal’s chief operating officer.

“Our customer numbers increased to a record high of nearly 20,500, testament to our aim to provide customers with the most effective marketing exposure and the highest quality leads, as well as helping to drive efficiencies within their businesses though tools and support.

“As the industry becomes more digital our software has become even more valuable to our customers with 90 per cent of our agency members making use of it each month. Our market leading position, our culture of restlessness, and our ambition to make our marketplace even more efficient means there are many reasons to be excited by the opportunities ahead for Rightmove, and the board remains confident of making further progress in 2018."

Fake Agent
23 February 2018 14:08 PM

And also incredibly successful. Love it or loathe it, Rightmove has a very sound business model and has used this to its benefit. It knows, even without agents, it would be OK because people would still demand that their homes be listed on the portals. After all, the majority of home buyers search for properties online - and mostly through RM and Zoopla.

There are things I don't like about RM and how it operates, but this rather churlish 'RM is the devil incarnate' approach from agents is ridiculous. Maybe if more of an attempt was made to work with RM the situation would be better for all concerned.

Clearly the alternative - OTM - didn't work and will never work, so we are stuck with an effective duopoly and need to make the best of it. The biggest irony of the OTM fiasco is it knocked Zoopla - genuinely challenging RM's dominance - off its perch and made RM much stronger.