A confident Rightmove this morning reported “healthy trading” over the last four months, with membership up 2%, to stand at a record 19,320. Agency membership by the end of October stood at 16,913, up 1% since the start of the year. There was also a 5% rise in the number of new homes developments on the site.
In an interim management statement covering the period July 1 to October 31, it also reported an increase in income, with average revenue per advertiser continuing to rise.
The statement contains no financial information, but says that traffic to the site was up, with inquiries to agents up by 12% compared with the same period last year, and “more vendors insisting their properties are advertised on Rightmove”.
Rightmove also reported that its data services business has continued to grow, “as we help a wide range of customers, including banks and surveyors, to leverage Rightmove’s UK property database, which is the largest of its kind, covering nearly two-thirds of the UK owner-occupied and privately rented housing stock”.
Rightmove also reports on its shares buying programme, saying that since the end of July, the company has acquired and subsequently cancelled 800,000 shares at a cost of £17.9m.
Tomorrow, the company will be paying an interim dividend of 13p per share to those shareholders on the register as at October 10.
Nick McKittrick, Rightmove CEO, told the City this morning: “Rightmove’s popularity with the British home moving public is going from strength to strength.
“We have more home movers visiting more often and spending more time than ever before, searching for and researching property from nearly every agent in the UK.
“On the back of this record traffic, we’ve increased inquiries to our customers by over 10%.”
There is no mention in the interim management statement of either Zoopla or the imminent launch of the Agents’ Mutual portal, OnTheMarket.
Shareholders will probably be delighted with tomorrow’s dividend, but will be watching Rightmove’s share price, down by some 25% this year.
The shares ended yesterday at 2,205p, having hit a 52-week high of 2,814p and a low of 1,935p.
Morgan Stanley says that its shares have underperformed by 20% this year, first on Zoopla concerns and most recently on Agents’ Mutual worries.
However, says Morgan Stanley, the market has over-reacted. It points out that Rightmove’s 74% profit margin is “amongst the highest in the global internet space” and that Rightmove is debt-free.
But despite Rightmove’s upbeat statement, shares were quickly down – a dip of 30p by 9.30am this morning, and of 50p by 11.20am
Comments (5)
Do your homework before making inane uneducated comments Woodentop (aptly named by the way).The reason why RM buy their own shares, which they have been doing for years, is to increase the value of their own company not stop it from collapsing you muppet. Basically the complete opposite of what you seem to think.
Now now, temper temper. Precisely buying their own shares does not increase its value, it fools the stock market into believing that if it is trading shares it is a viable business. Their share value hasn't gone up, it is falling and without capital input (buying their own shares) they would go down faster, just like Z is. Your comment seems to indicate they are rigging their company value which everyone knows, they have no assets to cover the trading value! You must be a RM employee.
Flippin hell @jmeapps01, calm it down fella, this is a friendly forum, don't get yourself all redfaced and wound up, apology owed to @woodentop? plus being an over opinionated, shouty smart 4rse isn't a good look on any subject especially something as dull as bl00dy RM shares – Jonnie
And why have they been buying their own shares ……..because they will collapse. It is a false market, shop window dressing. I bet every director in RM is taking tablets and burring their heads in sand that AM will go away for the collapse of a company that is based on no assets can happen extremely fast. Buyers who do not contribute revenue to RM is a non-event. They will go where they are led by the high street agents who have total control on this stream, they are not bothered which web site as long as it is free and they have easy access and that will also apply to sellers. I fed up with hearing RM propaganda on statistics, according to them year on year, every month I get over a 1/4 million visits to my properties and yet the telephone hardly rings for that amount of interest.
I was at one of their agent seminars yesterday. Very upbeat, strong presentation but only a passing mention of zoopla and no mention at all of onthemarket. I think they see OTM as a bigger threat to Zoopla then to them.