REA Group sees emerging higher property listing revenues - and utility connections

REA Group has reported a full-year underlying net profit after tax of $185.4 million, up 24% on a year ago, with revenues up 20% to $523 million.

Ad sales were slightly below consensus forecasts of $528 million, as were net profits, which analysts had forecast at $192 million, according to Bloomberg.

The shares, which got to a year high of $51.28 in February, are trading at around $41.20.

REA Group chief executive Tracey Fellows told investors and analysts on a conference call the business had "achieved 20% revenue growth despite listing volumes in the Australian market being down 4%" for the year ended June 30. 

"Listing volumes recovered in June and this recovery has continued into July; giving us some indication of improving market conditions for the first half," Ms Fellows said.

“We’ve accomplished this by providing our customers more choice and better value and by giving the 3.4 million people who use our sites monthly an exceptional experience.

“Our strategy to take our expertise both internationally and to new markets gathered pace this year.

"We have expanded into the world’s largest property market, the US with Move; as well as one of the fastest growing regions through our iProperty investment in Asia.

“And we launched our utility connections service that is helping movers compare and connect services to their property, such as gas, electricity and subscription TV."

Australian revenues increased by 21% to $472.8 million this year.

Its agent customers increased by 5% to 9,922 for the year ended 30 June 2015.

Average monthly visits to realestate.com.au main and mobile sites grew 26% with the average number of monthly page views on realestate.com.au at around 991 million, that REA claims is some six times higher than the number two site, Domain.