realestate.com.au 2007 results

Online company Real.estate.com.au Ltd has booked an 83.2 per cent increase annual profit and says it is looking for opportunities to enter new markets.

The property search website operator made a net profit of $15.06 million for fiscal 2007, up from $8.2 million in the previous year.

Revenue rose 77.4 per cent to $107.97 million, on the back of organic growth.

"In the coming year we will continue to improve our existing operations while looking for opportunities to enter new markets," chief executive and managing director Simon Baker said.

The main Australian operations delivered earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of $39.13 million, up from $21.14 million, as the margin improved to 45 per cent from 38 per cent.

The United Kingdom operation made an EBITDA loss of $8.18 million in the year ended June 30, compared to a loss of $2.96 million.

But the company's new businesses in Italy and Luxembourg were profitable with EBITDA margins of seven per cent and nine per cent, respectively.

Mr Baker said the company's flagship Australian site, realestate.com.au, continued to gain market share.

In June, it had 100 per cent more unique browsers than the country's second site, domain.com.au, according to Nielsen/NetRatings.

Overall, 7.14 million people visited the websites owned and operated by the group, which was up 44 per cent than in June 2006.

In July, that number rose to 7.6 million.

The number of real estate agent subscribers increased by 59 per cent over the year to 17,011, from 10,713.

Agents are the company's core customers and agent subscriptions are a key performance and revenue driver.

Property listings rose 84 per cent to 1.083 million in June, from a year ago.

In February, Mr Baker said real estate agents were beginning to question the value of traditional media for property listings.

He said that realestate.com.au was significantly cheaper than print media alternatives and had an average revenue per listing per month of between $15 and $20.

The company did not declare a final dividend.

The group operates a stable of global websites including realestate.com.au, property.com.au, homesite.com.au, realcommercial.com.au and propertylook.com.au.

Source The Age