Zoopla has experienced a good second quarter of 2015, with its latest trading update revealing that it has recorded a net growth of 213 estate agency branches during the period.
These additions take the total UK agency membership of the group to 12,556 branches. More significantly, the rises are the first recorded since the emergence of challenger website OnTheMarket.
Encouragement
A statement released by Zoopla said, ‘management is encouraged by the reduction in churn and return to growth of the UK Agency business, combined with the strong performance of its members who continue to grow their listings. The Zoopla Property Group had 2,672 new home development members, 684 overseas members and 219 commercial members taking the total number of members at the end of the period to 16,131.’[1]
In addition, the inventory has grown by 7% from 828,000 to 882,000 properties over the same period. What’s more, traffic to the site is strong, with Zoopla reporting 45.6m monthly visits on average, between April 1st and July 31st. [1]
Pleased
Alex Chesterman, founder of Zoopla Property Group, today announced the figures, to the approval of many shareholders. Chesterman said, ‘We are very pleased that over the past few months of trading we have returned to growth in our number of UK agency members. Our huge audience of property-interested consumers remains loyal and engaged and our members are enjoying strong performance and a competitive advantage in terms of both brand exposure and leads generated via our platform.’
‘With the acquisition of [price comparison website] uSwitch now complete and the business performing well, we are focused on developing our combined services to provide consumers with a single resource for all their property needs which will serve to further enhance our user engagement and create a greater competitive advantage for our advertisers.’[1]
[1] https://www.estateagenttoday.co.uk/breaking-news/2015/8/zoopla-reveals-latest-figures-for-agent-membership