12th Feb 2015 07:37
LONDON (Alliance News) - Online property portal Zoopla Property Group PLC on Thursday said it is trading in line with its expectations for the year and shrugged off the challenge posed by new estate-agent-backed property portal OnTheMarket.
FTSE 250-listed Zoopla said it is trading in line with expectations for its financial year to the end of September so far and is on track to achieve its long-term growth targets.
The company said it does expect some limited further agency churn, but says this will be offset by the return of some members who consider the 'one-other portal rule' put in place by OnTheMarket to be "damaging to their business".
OnTheMarket is a start-up property portal founded by Agents Mutual, a cooperative formed by a group of estate agents. Under the rules for signing up to the new site, members must withdraw their membership from either Rightmove PLC or Zoopla.
The group said its agency numbers have been dragged down by the launch of OnTheMarket, with total advertising members down 11% to 16,967 at the end of January from 18,999 a year earlier.
"We believe that Agents' Mutual remains a short-term event and that its success will be determined by whether consumers engage with it. So far it appears to have got off to a very slow start with consumers. We continue to enhance the services we provide to our users and the value we offer to our members and our record traffic highlights the success of this approach," said Zoopla Chief Executive Officer Alex Chesterman
Zoopla added it had 42.3 million average monthly visits between October 1 and the end of January and a record 50.5 million visits in January. Mobile users now account for more than 60% of the monthly visits, the company said, with online customer numbers up 42% year-on-year.
By Sam Unsted; [email protected]; @SamUAtAlliance
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