Rightmove's revenue and profits have soared while the profit margin has increased yet further.
The website announced record breaking figures this morning in its results for last year.
Revenue was up by 23% to £119.4m, while underlying operating profit rose 26% to £87.5m in 2012.
The underlying profit margin is 73.3% – up from 71.5% in 2011.
The results came off the back of a 19% rise in average revenue per advertiser, even though the number of advertisers did not change during the year. Altogether, there were 18,270 advertisers by the end of 2012, displaying 1.1m properties.
Each agent and developer who lists on Rightmove last year paid an average of £529 per month, up from £443 in 2011.
Site traffic was also up by 18% last year to 11 billion pages, while 21.2m inquiries were fed to advertisers, up from 19.6m in 2011.
Rightmove said that the merger last April of Digital and Zoopla, to create "a single large competitor" had not affected its market share, which it puts at 82%.
Notably, no estate agents are among Rightmove's major shareholders. In its listing of the ten shareholders with a 3% or higher stake, the biggest shareholder is Baillie Gifford with 8.3%. Standard Life has a 6.1% holding, while the Rightmove Employees' Share Trust has a 3.3% stake.
Nick McKittrick, incoming chief executive officer, said: “More than a decade of investment has established Rightmove as one of the UK’s most popular online brands.
“We continue to invest in order to maintain our market-leading position and enable Rightmove members to promote their properties and brand in front of the most home movers.
“We’ve seen an encouraging start to the year with record traffic and inquiries, and with a major new TV campaign launching next month we’re looking forward to that continuing throughout 2013.”
In its report to shareholders, Rightmove said it “devotes considerable effort to helping our customers be more successful in ways other than just advertising.
“Much of this is through individual day to day support and advice from our local and telephone-based account managers.
“Both 2012 and early 2013 have been notable for the number and range of other activities we have undertaken to help our customers to be more successful.”
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Comments
Hi to All,
I am planning for a very much innovative solution which is very much unique of its kind within UK market. I am releasing a website which will do what rightmove and zoopla are doing + many more that will generate more value for the agents/property developer and also generate more value to the buyers and tenants. My long term goal is to compete with these two giants and I am determined to succeed.
I need all your help and support to achieve that. My solution will be lot more cost advantage to all agents and property developer. I am not giving the full detail now and I will give full details only one week before release.
Kind Regards
Support LSL, support Zoopla, Support LSL
Choose Zoopla, Ditch Rightmove.
Simples!
I hate rightmove with a passion, robbing bstds! I am setting up a website that will allow agents to list EXACTLY how much they are being fleeced for, of course its all undercover so RM wont see but it will be interesting!! I will be asking:
How many properties do you list?
What do you pay per month?
It will then be listed on the website for all to see.
Their success is correlated to the value their clients perceive they deliver. The fact that they make so much money suggests EAs think they are good value (or are simply using RM to offload profit) Great to hear of a business being so successful. I quit RM as their values did not accord with mine.. Their god was profit and 'shareholder value' at any cost with no concept of 'walking in the customers shoes' and as a small business the ROI was pants. They told me the reason I was not getting any leads was because I hadn't paid for a premium package! Bye bye RM
look up the word majority, it is a different word to all
Estate agency chain makes millions. No comments.
Thousands of home owners have lost money. One comment.
Our expenses have risen. 26 comments.
Priorities.
Pull up chair - you are wrong 2 posts down there were from me! I do not work for Rightmove.
That was a bit rubbish wasn't it
the majority of posts are from Rightmove employees and other than Scott who wants to flog his portal no-one else bit.
The funniest RM monkey post was the one from the bitter portal developer.
The sad thing about thes poor bastads working at RM is that they think they have a job for life and the cash is going to keep rolling in.
Not one single post on here comes anywhere near to the WTC collapse of RM that is on the cards. Such a collapse won't even notice on the Rhino hides of Miles and co but the monkies posting on here will end up bitter recipients of the golden P45.
Yeah right? yep! just like the EPC boys who were cashing in for a very short while.
10 years ago someone decided to cash in on the stupidity of estate agents.
That 72% proves it to be a genius desision.
All the time there is a portal the buyers will never go back to looking at each individual agent's website as the first port of call.
The only answer to eroding the power of the portal is for the whole indutry to stop using them at the same time. You know it will never happen because the EA industry has fierce competition and its primary marketing tool is duopoly. Its like saying the only way to save HMV is for everyone to stop downloading music, it just isn't going to happen. .
The moaning makes me sick portals are cheaper than newspaper advertising and gives you a better service.
I have often heard EA's on this forum say to the moaning wannabe home owners that cant afford a house "well work your backside of so that you can, rent or do something else"
So stop your moaning get out there and sell more houses so that you can afford to use the portals, dont use portals or close , but dont moan.
I LOVE RIGHTMOVE... I'm not on Zoopla or PrimeLocation - There is no need to double my property portal costs.
I've just tried Property Network and got no leads (despite their "10 leads per month guarantee"), so asked for my money back this morning.
I championed PropertyLive, had just started getting about 1 lead a week (!) and now they've pulled it.
I've just had a RM price rise... It aint cheap but it's cheaper than Newspaper ads and it works massively for my business... I LOVE RIGHTMOVE
Get Propertylive back on its feet, make it available to ALL agents, and then ALL AGENTS only promote Propertylive in their shop windows, websites, etc.
Then see where we are in 2014.
I actually think rightmove offers good value for money, PROVIDING you have plenty of stock to shift.
It's the poor sods like the small independents, the small family run businesses, etc, that are being shafted. The larger companies, with higher turnover and higher profits are getting much better value for money out of rightmove than them.
WHY won't rightmove play it fair and introduce a charging structure based on the amount of property being advertised?
If they did, we would go back to advertising with them!
guys these are the same moans and groans as there are every year from you bout price hikes from rm but next year it will be the same people who are doing the moaning as it is this year and its your own fault because you are the sheep who are too scared to leave because your neighbour is still on rm so you feel you have to be.
The right things have been said,remove their advertising material from your window, promote your website, speak positively bout your strengths etc and use another website until they chew you up and spit.
SHEEP OR SHEPHERD, YOU DECIDE dont leave it to your neighbour and next year maybe rm profit will go down a mite and you can feel good bout those other sheep.
Have been waiting for some comment on 'normal' profit levels because it strikes me that anything more than 30% net profit, after tax, is a very healthy position.
So 73% - is that after tax, net clear for reinvestment in the business, dividend to shareholders and high salaries and new cars and fat bonuses for the management?
And 82% market share - blimey RM can do whatever it likes.
Incredible - but then that's what a monopoly or near monopoly position can do for you.
A few years ago, I developed a property portal, which worked in a similar way to Rightmove (including automatic datafeed). The portal was free to advertise on and always would be free, with just fees for extra branding or premium ads.
Of the 10,000 agents I contacted, only 500 subscribed... this suggests to me that the vast majority of agents are happy to pay a premium price to Rightmove (RM) for an advertising service which works.
The only way another portal could break the cycle would be to:
1. Provide a similar product to RM
2. Put a guarantee in place not hike prices... ever!
3. Get agreement for all subscribing agents to withdraw from RM for a trial period.
This is never going to happen; so my advice is buy shares in RM... it's a sure bet!
How do you estate agents expect rightmove to grow revenue and continue to show a return to the shareholders at level they have come to expect.
They have two choices increase prices or increase the number of subscibers
You all hate new business models or individuals being allowed to get access to the portals. So don't moan when they put the price up. Its the only way they can increase revenue.
Eventually the price will go to a point where many EA's cannot afford pay and Rightmove will see subscriptions start to fall. They will lose market share to one new cheaper rival. Then the cycle will begin again
So you are screwed the internet has screwed you because buyers initially want to go to one place to look for properties and the portlas do this. There is no requirment in your market to have 8 or 9 portals that will create the competition required to keep prices down.
Less competition = higher prices it's as simple as that.
Continuous griping will achieve nothing.
RM will not change whilst they make that sort of profit.
Is it necessary from your perspective.
Is it value for your money, or not.
You decide, pay or don't pay and move on.
It's that simple.
.
If one keeps paying for the service then surely one sees the value in it? Nothing comes for free unfortunately.
Not this old chestnut again bring on 2014 profits wish i had a pound for everytime "we created this monster"
Typical Rightmove and they are still after MORE MORE MORE
Scott., I can't' believe the irony of an EA moaning about increasing prices when they are partly responsible for crazy high house prices. All EA's seem to say high prices are good.
Chris, If a home owner makes 73% when selling a property does that mean they are ripping the poor buyer off? This profit level is very normal in software
Come on you guys are you capitalists or communists.
@Christopher Clarke
Yep! Couldn't agree more.
That's a profit margin of 73%.
Blimey!
Now that's what you call a good business to be in.
It's no wonder that the internet is destroying normal businesses every day.
So, ladies and gents, from the horse's mouth, it's official - YES WE ARE ALL GETTING RIPPED OFF.
A normal, healthy profit margin is usually between 10 and 20 percent.
Less than that and there is a problem. More than that and somebody is getting ripped off.
WOW!
@fantasitc,
"Good to hear of a British company going from strength to strength
Why do people hate success?"
Have you actually read any of the posts on this forum?
I don't think anybody hates success, I just think success at the expense of everybody else though tends to be a bitter pill to swallow.
“We’ve seen an encouraging start to the year with record traffic and inquiries, and with a major new TV campaign launching next month we’re looking forward to that continuing throughout 2013.”
Hmm! I wonder who will be paying for that!!
Good to hear of a British company going from strength to strength
Why do people hate success?
What did you expect?
They've stolen our money
We need to leave - NOW
We've created this monster, we can bring it down
I'm starting a new portal, who is going to join me?
It's a disgrace!
This is going to be good.
We have created this monster. We will read the same next year. Letter received yesterday 20% increase from1st May.
Why...............20% more leads !
Thieves.