EYE NEWSFLASH! Zoopla announces record traffic as revenue jumps and agents return

Record traffic and leads to agents have been announced by Zoopla this morning.

ZPG said there were 648m visits and 56m leads in the 12 months to the end of September.

Its property division saw revenue leap by 41% to £122.3m, with the number of member agents jumping by 6% to 14,775 branches.

Average advertising revenue paid per member branch per month was up 5% to £358.

The total number of ‘property partners’ rose 12% to 24,962, with the figure aligning portals and software users. ZPG said that the figure excluded 788 legacy software customers not paying for an active support contract, but included advertising and data partners.

Overall ZPG – whose business includes the comparison website uSwitch – saw revenue up 24%, to £244.5m. However net debt increased to £191.5m as a result of acquisitions. Statutory profit for the year was up 2% after acquisition costs and share-based payments.

Its acquisitions in the year included Hometrack, ExpertAgent and Ravensworth.

ZPG founder and CEO Alex Chesterman said: “We are delighted to have delivered another year of record performance across the business.

“Our property division performed very well, driven by strong demand for our additional products, further migration of our software partners to cloud-based products and a continuation of returning portal partners.”

ZPG said over 1,000 branches had now returned to it, but there was no specific mention of OnTheMarket.

The company said it has grown its headcount by 20% and now employs 882 staff.

Today’s results also reveal the disposal of the domain name Propertyfinder.com

The company also this morning announced the acquisition of Calcasa, a provider of automated property valuations in the Netherlands.

* Separately this morning, LSL issued a trading update saying that its profits this year are likely to be marginally ahead of expectations.

It said group revenues for the ten months ended October 31 increased by 1.1% to £260.9m (2016: £258.0m) with revenue in its estate agency business up by 1.6%. While income from residential sales was down 9% in the period, lettings income was up 4% and financial services revenue up 16%.

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9 Comments

  1. Bless You

    Now ban PAYANYWAY agents from your site and enjoy a much bigger increase in agent numbers..

    I wish ZPG were only a portal and not busy hoovering up small time companies .

    If they did 1 thing very well  they would beat Rightmove easily…  like 100 million in aquisitions…   that could have gone on advertising to really kill rightmove.

     

    The Advert:

    We dont let payanyway agents on our site because real estate agents:

    Answer the phone

    Know where your city actually is when you ring

    Sales chase 

    Give you a cup of tea after you come in from speaking to your inept solictor all stressed out

    etc etc..

    ———————-

    Zoopla should be the voice of the honest/ genuine estate agent…

    wow i wish i had a few million to invest in this product…   do it for the right reasons. 

     

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  2. GPL

    It’s the thin end of a very lucrative wedge for Zoopla… as they nestle submissively and very conveniently behind Rightmove…. Zoopla claiming to be the agents business friend/alternative to Rightmove.

    Make no mistake fellow agents, The Duopoly are leeches on Our Industry. Ensure you extract every last pound out of them in terms of business because they seek to extract hefty pounds from Our Industry.

    The Duopoly is our term for a Monopoly…  let’s not forget that.

    As for OnTheMarket…. a monumental failure. Currently lifeless pending rising from its Portal Ashes! Come on Mr Springett & Co…. get on with it and lets see OTM V2 and witness failure turning into success?

    Will it be…. The BIG OTM V2 Christmas Launch with Santa fronting the Launch Campaign or the Make You Happier New Year Campaign with Rightmove and OTM throwing snowballs at each other? I’m looking forward to seeing how it’s all going to work this time Ian.

    Mr Chesterman, enjoy your shares… Ian Springett is hoping to nestle up next to you in his Millionaire’s Loafers…. just not yet though?

     

     

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    1. Maxwell73

      Basically you don’t like portals. Because they charge. Portals are not going anywhere, and they exist for one reason, and that reason it to make profit. Welcome to the world of business.

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      1. GPL

        Maxwell73….

        ”Welcome to the world of business” ? ……don’t make me laugh harder than I am already.

        Portals are t*rds wrapped in digital glitter….. they are a hollow example of “business” …..no more than a simple advertising platform, a digital blackboard.

        Overcharging Portals best suck up their profits because their “World of Business” will come under sustained attack in due course by others who recognise the easy profits that can be made however they will settle for less profits!

        Portals Maxwell73? …….they are the sh*te on the shoe soles of Our Industry. Financial sucking Leeches!

        Dislike them? Me? You think that’s a “New” Perspective?

        I make Profit providing a real service to my clients Maxwell73…. NOT financially fleecing them for an advertising billboard!

        As stated….. “Portals are Digital T*rds!”

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        1. Maxwell73

          I should’ve added “Welcome to the world of business – in the 21st century”.

          As you rightly described them: ” a simple advertising platform, a digital blackboard”. And that platforms offers the exposure you’d never get anywhere outside of the digital realm, and they charge for that. Let’s not forget that it’s not compulsory to advertise with them; we do so out of choice (albeit begrudgingly) because we know that’s where consumers are.

          Don’t get me wrong, I do not like paying the fees, and I wish they would charge less, but they are in the business of making profit, and I have to hand it to them, they’ve done that pretty damn well at creating a model that does just that.

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  3. P-Daddy

    Well done agents…when your businesses are being squeezed, Zoopla are delighted to report

    ‘Its property division saw revenue leap by 41% to £122.3m’

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  4. Thomas Flowers

     

    Question:

    Who gains most from dropping the one other portal rule?

    Question:

    Game, set and match to Z?

    Question:

    Could my enemy’s enemy ever be my friend?

     

     

     

     

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    1. GPL

      Well TF,  Zoopla won’t need to buy out OTM V2 and add to their portfolio because they will have hooked most of their Members already.

      As we see, Zoopla are just using Agents Property Stock to dress their online window to sell other products and services.

      Zoopla are more blatant than Rightmove who bleed Agents annually for basically the same service each year. Rightmove is summed up thus – Never knowingly undersold, indeed!

      Zoopla should be much cheaper as property listings are merely a sideshow now, their pricing structure should be sub £100 per month. Rightmove remain a bloated grossly overcharging Portal built of digital straw.

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      1. Thomas Flowers

        Agree with you GPL

        However, new General Data Protection Regulations changes everything.

         

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