Rightmove annual profits boosted by agency, new homes businesses
By Michele Maatouk
Date: Friday 28 Feb 2020
(Sharecast News) - Property website Rightmove reported a rise in annual revenue and profit on Friday, driven by growth in its agency and new homes businesses.
Pre-tax profit for 2019 increased to ?213.7m from ?198.6m the year before, on revenue of ?289.3m, up 8%. Basic earnings per share were up 10% to 19.6p and the final dividend was lifted by 10% to 4.4p.
Average revenue per advertiser rose ?83 to ?1,088 per month, while membership numbers down 3% since the start of the year to 19,809, reflecting a drop in mainly low-stock agency branches offset by strong growth in new homes development numbers.
Rightmove expects the UK online property advertising market to continue to grow. It said post-election stability has led to an "optimistic" start to 2020 for the UK property market. However, this increased activity may take some months to feed through to the cash flow of its smallest customers and as a result, it anticipates a continuation of the second-half trend in declining agency branch numbers in the short term.
Chief executive officer Peter Brooks-Johnson said: "Rightmove's purpose is to make home moving easier in the UK and the public once again moved with Rightmove in 2019. In fact, Rightmove is synonymous with home moving, with 2019 being the ninth year in a row more people searched on Google for Rightmove than for property."
He said January 2020 was the company's busiest month ever, with more than 152 million visits and that trend has continued as it recorded its five busiest days ever in February.
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