REA revenues up 30% in Australia despite listings decrease

The online real estate company, REA Group, which is majority-owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, has posted a 34% rise in net profit to $94.7 million.

Revenues rose 25% to $261.5 million, with the strong performance in the Australian residential market, where revenue rose 30% to $15.4 million, for the six months to 31 December.

Australia remained the primary revenue driver for the business, delivering 90% of the group’s revenue.

Chief executive Tracey Fellows said REA had extended its lead over its nearest competitor, Fairfax Media Domain in both number of site visits and time spent on site, which sits at almost seven minutes. 

But its total listings are down.

There was an increase in the number of Australian agent customer offices by 5% to 9,664 in December 2014.

The average monthly revenue per agent (ARPA) grew by 22% to $3,046.

Residential new-buy listings decreased 4% half on half. 

The combined Australian sites realestate.com.au, realcommercial.com.au and property.com.au attracted average monthly visits of 44.6 million during the half-year, growing by 12% compared to the prior half-year.

Mobile site and app combined visits grew by 15% to 19.8 million average monthly visits with mobile site traffic increasing 59% to 9.7 million average monthly visits for the half-year period.

The average monthly visits for realestate.com.au’s combined main and mobile sites outperformed the nearest competitor site by 3.3 times, the report advised.

The average monthly total time on site for realestate.com.au’s main and mobile sites for the half-year was 230.4 million minutes extending our lead against our nearest competitor by 30% and outperforming by 5.6 times.

REA's shares finished four% higher yesterday at $51.28.