PropertyGuru doubles revenue and Internet users over one-year period

PropertyGuru, a leading property portal company in Asia, announced last week that their revenue and Internet users have more than doubled in a year, compared to the same period in 2011.

The Singapore-based company claims to have market leadership in Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

Its main competitor is Malaysia’s iProperty, which also has a presence in several Asia-Pacific markets.

PropertyGuru’s revenue growth, which grew 2.4 times, is attributed to a 50 percent increase in paying agent subscribers to over 19,100 members, a rise in large contracts from real estate developers and non-property advertisers across the region as well as a successful newly-created regional events business since April 2011.

(Read: Interview with CEO Steve Melhuish on how PropertyGuru conquered foreign markets)

PropertyGuru has also seen a 128 percent rise in Internet users over one year. It has reached 8.2 million visitors viewing 65 million property pages in April 2012, compared to 3.6 million visitors in the same month last year.

Citing Google AdPlanner, the company further claims that PropertyGuru and CommercialGuru account for 85 percent of all total pageviews from property seekers using property portal websites in Singapore, and over double the number of user views as compared to all other competitor’s property portal traffic.

The property portal company has also invested heavily in mobile innovation, growing from two mobile apps in one country to 12 mobile apps in four countries. They launched a Blackberry Agent app and Blackberry Consumer app, claiming they’re the first and only property-related apps for the Blackberry in Indonesia. They unveiled an Android Agent app in Malaysia as well.

In Singapore, their iPhone app saw four million monthly pageviews and over 25,000 enquiries for agents per month. 26 percent of Singapore’s PropertyGuru users are surfing the site on mobile, compared to between 15 and 16 percent in Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia. From January to April, they have secured 111,000 mobile downloads.

To ensure its success in the region, PropertyGuru has hired two industry veterans. Chris Antonius, the new country manager for Indonesia, has online, business development, sales and marketing experience in the digital media, financial services, and property fields.

Joel Lim, the new regional head of events, has more than 13 years experience in the MICE industry.