Rightmove has published its half year results to 30th June 2022 and shows average revenue per advertiser is up 11% to £1,290 per month. The company has returned over £100m of cash to its shareholders.

Revenue is up £12.8m/9% on 2021 to £162.7m, as customers continued to increase their use of digital products and upgrade their packages

Operating profit of £121.3m, up 6% on 2021 (2021: £114.9m)

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 is up 7% compared to 2021.

Underlying operating profit is £122.4m, up 5% on 2021 (2021: £117.1m)

Basic earnings per share up 8% to 11.7p (2021: 10.8p), underlying earnings per share(3) is up 7% to 11.8p (2021: 11.0p)

Interim dividend for 2022 up 10% to 3.3p (2021: 3.0p) per ordinary share

£100.3m of cash returned to shareholders through share buybacks and dividends in the first half of 2022 (2021: £128.3m)

Cash and cash equivalents, including money market deposits, at the end of the period of £43.9m (31 December 2021: £48.0m)

Peter Brooks-Johnson, Chief Executive Officer, said:

“Our success during the first half of the year demonstrated the ongoing resilience of our customer base and the continuing love for and trust in our brand.

“Despite the housing market cooling slightly, activity on our platform was significantly higher than in the pre-pandemic market of 2019, with home-hunters using Rightmove for 1.5 billion minutes every month.

“Our continuous improvements and innovation have helped to increase engagement from home-hunters in tools such as sold prices, along with further investment from agents and developers as they continue to believe in the effectiveness of our digital products and tools to help them run and grow their businesses”.

“I’m excited by our recent developments to make the process of renting a property easier for tenants and agents.

“The new lead-to-keys workflow will give tenants the ability to search, view, secure and contract on a property, all from their mobile phones. I hope that this will alleviate some of the stress in this very competitive rental market”.