PropertyGuru makes big bet on mall analytics, progresses on loans business

New York-listed PropertyGuru Group, which started as an online property listing portal, is widening its offerings as a proptech company.

Developers and managers of real estate investment trusts (REITs) will soon have access to insights on the footfall, dwell time, and demographics of the shoppers who visit their malls, with the help of an analytics tool developed by the group.

The Mall Intelligence Module was launched in January, and it’s expected to track performance across nearly 200 malls by the end of 2024.

“It gives you a sense then what kind of retail mix you need to have if you’re a mall operator,” Hari Krishnan, CEO and managing director of PropertyGuru, tells The Business Times. “Are you maximizing your potential? Have you got the mix correct? This becomes very valuable insights for mall operators and owners.”

“You’re also able to understand how your model performs versus other malls that you may be competing with for footfall or traffic,” he adds. “These kinds of insights give you a sense of the future for PropertyGuru. We are able to bring our insights together to help people make informed decisions.”

PropertyGuru CEO and managing director Hari Krishnan / Photo credit: PropertyGuru

The Mall Intelligence Module will open up “an entire new customer segment” for the company, Krishnan says. He hopes to take PropertyGuru’s market insights, intelligence, and software solutions to REITs, urban planners, and state governments across its markets in Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, and eventually Thailand.

PropertyGuru posted a net loss of S$6.3 million (US$4.7 million) for the first quarter of 2024, narrower than the S$10.2 million (US$7.6 million) it recorded in the same period last year.

Revenue for the quarter rose 11.9% year on year to S$36.5 million (US$27 million) on the back of strong growth in the Singapore marketplace segment.

Basic loss per share for the period stood at S$0.04 (US$0.03), compared with S$0.06 (US$0.04) loss per share in the year-ago period.

See also: PropertyGuru’s financial health in 6 charts

When asked about PropertyGuru’s layoffs earlier this year, Krishnan says: “I think a lot of other companies were cutting for cost-cutting reasons. We were very clear that we are rearchitecting the business – that means we’re changing how and where we work.”

For instance, the company had a technology center in Thailand, but it decided to exit it and concentrate its engineering teams in other locations, according to Krishnan. Two branch offices in Vietnam were shut down because the country manager decided the offices “weren’t getting the efficiencies we needed.”

“We’re still very bullish on Vietnam and Singapore,” Krishnan says. “But … right now, economic conditions are tough. And we have to bring our investments in line with the size of the opportunity that we have over the next 12 to 24 months.”

Still room to grow