Asia's Property Guru recounts its successes, dishes on future plans
Singapore, 15 February, 2011 — 2010 was a record-breaking year for PropertyGuru International (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., the company behind Singapore's leading property portal, PropertyGuru.com.sg. Started in 2006, the company has hit numerous milestones and now serves over 1.7 million home buyers monthly, of which more than 150,000 are from overseas.
Last year, PropertyGuru Group tripled its revenue growth and PropertyGuru.com.sg recorded a 70 percent increase in users over the year, a tenfold rise over the last two years. It also clinched deals with some major clients, such as Savills, Far East Organization, Knight Frank, OCBC, Standard Chartered, and IKEA, among others. Additionally, PropertyGuru secured partnerships with Yahoo! Singapore, Mocca.com and sgCarMart, as well as leading overseas property portals realestate.com.au, squarefoot.com.hk, vproperty.mo and 99acres.com.
For all its hard work in 2010, PropertyGuru Group snagged a number of illustrious awards: first, the Singapore Infocomm Technology Federation (SiTF) award for Best e-Enterprise Company, followed by the Singapore Venture Capital & Private Equity Association (SCVA) award for Best Performing VC-Backed Company. At the same time, PropertyGuru increased its online property market leadership position — it ranked one on Hitwise, with an all-time high of more than 1.7 million users monthly and 20,667 property agent advertisers, moving from the 78th most visited website in Singapore to the 29th. To further raise its profile, PropertyGuru Group doubled its media spending with advertisements online and appointed Grid Advertising to manage its creative strategy and market planning, including launching an outdoor advertising campaign on buses, taxis and billboards.
Among its launches were LoanGuru.com.sg, CommercialGuru.com.sg, an iPhone application to help users find an extensive range of property listings and PropertyGuru Analytics, a comprehensive property analysis report service for agents. The iPhone application was downloaded 95,000 times within six months of its launch, while CommercialGuru is now used by nearly 200,000 business decision makers monthly. The company also conducted its fourth quarter property sentiment survey, the first of its kind in Singapore, which attracted 3,200 respondents. In addition, in just one year, it tripled its local staff strength to over 75.
Not content to rest on its laurels, PropertyGuru Group is committed to bringing more value/quality to its committee of loyal customers and agents in 2011 by focussing on the company's core values of constant innovation, service quality and increased marketing investments. The company has also set its sights on expanding into neighbouring countries. Already, it has entered into a joint venture with Redberry, one of Malaysia’s top media companies, to accelerate its expansion into Malaysia and launch HomeGuru.com.my, a website to help users find available properties for sale and rent in Malaysia. It has also acquired FullHouse Media Sdn Bhd, owners of leading North Malaysian property portal, FullHouse.com.my. Most recently, the company acquired Rumah.com, Indonesia's top property website with over 500,000 visitors viewing eight million impressions every month. Looking ahead, the two sites will accelerate PropertyGuru's overseas expansion, making 2011 a very promising year indeed.
Indeed, it has been a wonderful four years and counting for PropertyGuru Group. With its values of being ground-breaking, united and service-oriented, acting with urgency and focusing on results, rest assured that we will keep up the good work.
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Media Contact:
Ms. Winnie Khoo, Chief Marketing Officer
Tel: +65 6238 5971
Email: winnie@propertyguru.com.sg
About PropertyGuru International (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd.:
PropertyGuru Group is a Singapore firm founded in 2006 by two successful entrepreneurs. The company is best known for running www.PropertyGuru.com.sg, Singapore’s leading property site (sources: Hitwise, Alexa and Google AdPlanner). It also runs www.CommercialGuru.com.sg, Singapore’s only dedicated commercial and industrial property portal, as well as www.LoanGuru.com.sg, an online mortgage brokerage with access to over 200 mortgage deals at any time. The company just launched www.HomeGuru.com.my, a platform to identify available properties in Malaysia for purchase, sale, rental or investments, and a direct channel to search for and contact agents for assistance.
In 2010, PropertyGuru Group won the Singapore IT Federation (SITF) award for “Best E-Enterprise Company 2010”, Singapore Venture Capital Association (SVCA) “Best Performing VC Backed Company 2010” and Marketing Magazine “Top 10 Digital Media 2010”. The Company also picked up the “CNBC World’s Best Property Award 2009”, “Best Property Portal Asia Pacific 2009” and “Best Property Portal Singapore Award” in 2008 and 2009 for its www.PropertyGuru.com.sg website.
www.PropertyGuru.com.sg is used by over 1.7 million consumers who view 27 million pages and generate over 150,000 leads for advertisers every month. The user-base has grown 70 percent in the last 12 months. The site provides real time access to multimedia-rich content, covering property and home-related products, services, news, advice, guides, tools and the largest online property database in Singapore. It works closely with prominent real estate developers in Singapore and overseas and over 21,000 housing agents and home-related firms.
www.CommercialGuru.com.sg was launched in August 2010 and is used by 100,000 business users and investors, browsing one million pages and generating 50,000 leads for advertisers every month. It is Singapore’s only independent dedicated commercial and industrial property portal.
www.LoanGuru.com.sg was launched in January 2010 and is an independent online mortgage brokerage providing real time access to over 200 mortgage packages from over 22 banks. It generates over 500 loan leads per month.
www.HomeGuru.com.my is a Malaysian property portal launched in January 2011, as part of a joint venture between PropertyGuru Pte. Ltd., Singapore and RedBerry, Malaysia. The portal provides consumers a platform to identify available properties for purchase, sale, rental or investments, and a direct channel to search for and contact agents for assistance. Designed with the end-user in mind, the portal boosts real time access to multi-media rich content covering property and home-related products, services, news, advice, guides, tools and a rapidly growing online property database in Malaysia. It works closely with prominent real estate developers in Malaysia and overseas, housing agents and home-related firms.
For recent news, please visit www.propertyguru.com.sg/customer-service/press-releases. For more information, visit www.PropertyGuru.com.sg, www.CommercialGuru.com.sg, www.LoanGuru.com.sg and www.HomeGuru.com.my.