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Collin Furtado · · 5 min readPropertyGuru’s revenue and valuation fall for the first time in years
PropertyGuru, one of the leading real estate marketplaces in Southeast Asia, saw its revenue decline slightly while its expenses climbed in 2020.
Its revenue dipped by about 8% to S$82.1 million (US$61.9 million) last year from S$88.4 million (US$66.7 million) in 2019, according its filings with Singapore’s Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA).
The company’s 2020 revenue is far below the S$105 million (US$79 million) projected in its 2019 IPO prospectus.
PropertyGuru’s Singapore office / Photo credit: PropertyGuru
The US$61.9 million figure includes the US$1.3 million the company received from the Jobs Support Scheme, a grant from the Singapore government that aims to help employers retain local talent amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
In addition, the ACRA filings reveal that PropertyGuru’s valuation fell between its series E and F funding rounds, which both took place in 2020. Its value had fallen from US$723 million to US$692 million, according to calculations by VentureCap Insights.
This marks the proptech firm’s first decline in revenue and valuation since at least 2017, public filings show.
The real estate industry was hit hard by the pandemic last year, with businesses seeking to cut costs by renegotiating their rental contracts or even shuttering their offices as staff worked from home.
Commercial real estate in the Asia-Pacific region, which accounts for a large portion of revenue in the real estate industry, took a huge blow as total value of transactions plunged by nearly 40% in 2020.
Even though residential real estate in places like Singapore proved resilient, purchases made by non-residents were at its lowest level since 2003.
PropertyGuru declined to comment on queries from Tech in Asia about this matter.
Stagnating revenue
Here’s a deeper look at the company’s earnings.
PropertyGuru saw a minor rise in its agent income, which accounts for two-thirds of its total revenue, and a drop in its developer revenues.
Rising costs
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Asia’s property market took a beating last year, and this may have affected PropertyGuru’s earnings.
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