Rightmove agency fee income rises but member numbers ...

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03 March 2023

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By Marc Shoffman

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Rightmove agency fee income rises but member numbers dip

Rightmove has reported its second highest year for average revenue per advertiser (ARPA) despite agency branch membership dipping slightly.

The portal revealed in its 2022 annual results released this morning that its ARPA was up 11% annually to £1,314 per month.

Total membership remained relatively flat at 19,014, with agency branches down 178 and new homes up 223.

It also reported continued uptake of its premium Optimiser 2020 package, with 34% of independent agents now subscribing, up from 21% in December 2021.

Peter Brooks-Johnson, who will be repalce as chief executive of Rightmove by Johan Svanstrom this month, said: "The year's changing housing market conditions demonstrated our customers' resilience and ability to adapt and to continue to succeed.

"The softening from the covid-induced frenetic market towards a more normal market earlier in the year was disrupted in the final few months by the unexpected rapid mortgage rate increases.

"The strength of our results is a reminder of how effective and integral our new and existing products and services are in helping our customers in both faster and slower markets.

"Rightmove continues to be the place that people turn to and return to first, with an average of over 1.35bn minutes spent on our platform every month in 2022.

"The continuing love home movers have for Rightmove is testament to the team's focus on providing an easy to use leading edge platform, enhanced with innovation which home movers want. This is exemplified by the ability to create Property Lists which we launched in 2022. Over one million lists, and counting, have been created since launch.

"There's much more to come and exciting plans ahead for Rightmove. As a company that will always be close to my heart, and as a shareholder, I look forward to watching Rightmove's ongoing progress as it continues to make home moving easier."

Financial highlights:

Revenue up £27.7m/9% on 2021 to £332.6m, as customers continued to upgrade their packages and to increase their use of digital products
Operating profit of £241.3m; up 7% on 2021 (2021: £226.1m)
Excluding the one-off impact of 'other income' of £2.4m in the prior year (in relation to the release in 2021 of the contingent consideration for the acquisition of Van Mildert), underlying operating profit⁽²⁾ is up 7% compared to 2021.
Final dividend for 2022 up 8% to 5.2p (2021: 4.8p) per ordinary share. Total dividend for 2022 up 9% to 8.5p (2021: 7.8p)
£197.7m of cash returned to shareholders through share buybacks and dividends during 2022 (2021: £238.8m)
Cash and cash equivalents, including money market deposits, at the end of the period of £40.1m (31 December 2021: £48.0m)

https://otp.tools.investis.com/clients/uk/rightmove_plc/rns/regulatory-story.aspx?cid=625&newsid=1672217