28th Feb 2020 08:57
(Alliance News) - Rightmove PLC on Friday raised its annual dividend, as profit increased on revenue growth, driven by robust results from the group's Agency and New Homes businesses.
For 2019, the FTSE 100 online property portal reported a pretax profit of GBP213.6 million, up 7.7% from GBP198.3 million the year before.
Underlying operating profit came to GBP219.7 million, up 8% from GBP203.3 million, and above consensus expectations of GBP218.5 million.
Revenue also grew by 8%, to GBP289.3 million from GBP267.8 million in 2018, also rising slightly above analyst forecasts of GBP289.1 million.
The average revenue per advertiser was up 8.3% at GBP1,088 per month from GBP1,005 in 2018, but came in below consensus expectations of GBP1,094.
Also, total memberships numbers decreased by 3% to 19,809 from 20,454, due to a decline in low-stock Agency branches, with tighter trading conditions causing longer transaction times and cash flow issues, the company said.
Despite the decline in membership, Rightmove said its revenue growth was driven by upgrades to its product packages, as well as membership price increases.
Segmentally, the group's Agency business grew by 4% in revenue to GBP209.3 million, while New Homes rose by 20% to GBP55.5 million.
Rightmove declared a final dividend of 4.4 pence per share, bringing the total payout to 7.2p, up 11% from 6.5p the prior year.
Looking ahead, Rightmove said its average revenue per advertiser has continued to grow in 2020, and believes that with record website traffic in January, and a growing online property advertising market, it can be confident of making further progress.
"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. We continue to innovate, not only for home hunters, but also to help property professionals become more efficient and more resilient to a rapidly changing environment," said Chief Executive Officer Peter Brooks-Johnson.
"Our culture of restlessness has led to the development of a number of innovative solutions which allow our professional customers to market to by far the largest audience in the UK. January 2020 was our busiest month ever with more than 152 million visits and that trend has continued as we've recorded our five busiest days ever in February," Brooks-Johnson added.
Shares in Rightmove were down 4.9% at 603.73 pence on Friday in London.
By Dayo Laniyan; [email protected]
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