28th Feb 2014 08:22
LONDON (Alliance News) - Rightmove PLC Friday said its property website continues to be popular with advertisers and consumers, as profit and revenue rose significantly in 2013.
The company, which runs rightmove.co.uk, posted pretax profit of GBP97.0 million for 2013, from GBP83.2 million in 2012, as revenue rose 17% to GBP139.9 million from GBP119.4 million.
The website allows estate agents and home sellers to advertise properties for sale and potential buyers to browse those adverts, which include descriptions, pictures and often floor plans, plus the estate agent or seller contact details. It provides the same service for renters and letters.
Rightmove said its new homes businesses saw revenue growth of 17% to GBP24.2 million from GBP20.6 million in 2012, driven by the sale of additional advertising products including email campaigns and increases to core membership prices.
Other revenue across the firm's data services, overseas, commercial and non-property advertising streams grew to GBP8.4 million from GBP6.4 million - this made up 6% of the firm's total revenue in the year.
Overall, Rightmove said the number of advertisers rose 4% to 18,425 from 17,680 a year earlier, while site traffic rose 27% to 14.0 billion pages from 11.0 billion page in 2012. In turn, there were 70% more phone and email enquires from customers, at 36.0 million versus 21.2 million a year earlier.
Average revenue per advertiser rose 15% to GBP607 from GBP529 in 2012, which Rightmove said reflected "further adoption of our additional advertising products and packages and the effect of increases to our membership fees."
Recently the firm entered into a 12-month agreement with HSBC Holdings PLC for a GBP10.0 million committed revolving loan facility.
However, the company said it is confident that with the existing cash resources and banking facilities in place, coupled with the strength of the underlying business model, it will remain cash positive and will have adequate resources to continue in operational existence for the foreseeable future.
The company proposed a final dividend of 17.0 pence per share, up from 14.0 pence, making a total dividend of 28.0 pence from 23.0 pence, up 22%.
Rightmove shares were up 4.0% at 2,730.00 pence at the open Friday.
By Anthony Tshibangu; [email protected]; @AnthonyAllNews
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