PropertyGuru Q1 2015 Cash Income up 39% on continued innovation
SINGAPORE, 11 May 2015 – PropertyGuru Group is pleased to announce a 39% quarter-on-quarter increase in cash income for the three months ended March 2015 (“Q1 2015”), further evidence of the company’s market leadership position in Southeast Asia. The Group captured a record 92% of the market share in Singapore, and 59% in Thailand for Q1 2015 (source: ComScore).
This is despite a general downward trend across the Southeast Asian property markets. For example, real-estate advertisement spent in Singapore for 2014 decreased by 13% on a year-on-year (“Y-o-Y”) basis according to research done by AC Nielsen. This decline was mainly at the expense of traditional media such as print and TV.
PropertyGuru’s strong financial performance can be partly attributed to the shift in advertising from traditional to online mediums. The main driver is its growing strength in the online segment for advertising itself. In tandem to the Group’s market share growth across the region, combined Q1 visits across Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia increased 28% on a Y-o-Y basis, giving rise to a record achievement of 11 million consumer visits and 104 million page views per month across the four markets. Each market delivered double-digit growth in visits.
INNOVATION: THE PRIME GROWTH DRIVER
Mr Steve Melhuish, CEO and co-founder of PropertyGuru Group said, “We believe that our commitment to continued innovation is the key driver and force behind our success. The Group has been revolutionising the property search experience, and we are now seeing these innovative solutions paying off. By providing better user experience to property seekers, they increasingly turn to PropertyGuru in each of our markets. As a result, we generated more than 500,000 leads to our advertisers per month across all markets; a double digit Y-o-Y increase.”
2014 was a big year of innovation for PropertyGuru, where the company pushed out eight products and enhancements (some main examples represented below).
“We are proud of our financial and traffic performances, as this clearly demonstrates our success and commitment to serve both our advertisers and property seekers. 2015 is quickly panning out to be yet another exciting year for us, where we are on our way to becoming Singapore’s biggest mortgage hub and deliver even better mobile experiences,” added Steve.
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Jack Chong
Hill+Knowlton Strategies
6390 3329
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About PropertyGuru Group
PropertyGuru Group is Asia’s leading online property portal group used by more than 11 million property buyers, viewing over 104 million property pages and generating over 500,000 enquiries for real estate developer and agent advertisers – every month – across Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. The Group has developed and launched 15 mobile applications in four countries and three languages. At the end of 2014, the Group recorded over two million downloaded mobile apps, and won first position in the property category for the “Digital Media of The Year 2014” award organised by Marketing Magazine. Headquartered in Singapore, PropertyGuru was founded in 2006 by two entrepreneurs with a vision to simplify the property search process and help buyers, sellers and investors make better property decisions faster. Taking advantage of Asia’s growing affluence, property demand and online explosion, the company is market leader in Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia, receiving its first VC investment funding in 2008 and secured approximately $60m investment in 2012 from Deutsche Telekom, South East Asia’s largest digital investment to date. PropertyGuru was also the first to integrate its website with social media, first to launch Singapore’s only dedicated property newspaper – read by more than 100,000 readers island-wide every month – and it has also developed a property events platform, with approximately 30 shows held annually across four countries, addressing 30,000 potential property buyers on the ground.
ABOUT STEVE MELHUISH
Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Steve is an award-winning entrepreneur. In the last two decades, Steve built profitable companies throughout Asia and Europe. In 2006 along with his partner Jani Rautiainen, founded PropertyGuru. Under the auspice of this newly established brand, PropertyGuru provided a one-stop online shop for the listing and sale of residential and commercial properties to individual and institutional buyers and investors.
Prior to Steve’s current role, he held executive positions in various venture capital firms including Skype, AOL, Virgin Media, Vodafone, Extreme Media, iPass and Ariadne Capital. Steve’s expertise in leading global teams resulted in a US$500 million turnover for a business unit for Cable & Wireless. In 2007, Steve was awarded the Spirit of Enterprise Award in recognition of his contributions to entrepreneurship in Singapore. Steve is a non-executive director with two other firms and an angel investor and member of the Business Angels Network South East Asia.