Australia’s largest real estate portal www.realestate.com.au and its subsidiary companies known as the REA group, have reported strong half year growth, with revenue up 95% and profit up 98% over the same period last year.
Revenues increased to $48.1 million, which also represented 33% growth over the half year ending 30 June 2006, whilst profit after tax increased to $5.7 million.
Total operating expenses for the group, excluding depreciation and amortisation, increased to $39.3 million, representing 113% growth over the half year ending 31 December 2005 and 45% growth over the half year ending 30 June 2006.
Simon Baker, managing director of the REA Group said: “We are extremely pleased with the continued strong growth of the company. Our growth is being driven by three key strategies. First, we continue to deliver strong revenue and profit growth in our existing businesses, with the Australian business delivering strong revenue and gross profit growth and the UK business continuing to capture market share.”
Baker continued: “We also continue to enhance our product range with the new release of our commercial sites and the acquisition of additional products for our agent office solutions business.
“Finally we are advancing our international expansion with the acquisition of casa.it, the leading site in Italy and the atHome group based out of Luxembourg.”
The company stated as at the end of December, there were 12,140 agents paying to advertise on at least one of the REA sites. This is a 30% increase over the previous 12 months.
