Rightmove grows in spite of OTM

Rightmove continues to hold a dominant position in the online property search market after increasing its market share to 77 per cent, up from 74 per cent a year ago, in spite of fresh competition from the arrival of OnTheMarket.com at the start of 2015. Recognising the fact that its website remains a must-see destination for buyers and renters, the number of agents listing on Rightmove rose by two per cent year-on-year to 19,752 over the year to the end of December. The rise in the volume of agents listing on the portal helped boost Rightmove’s revenue by 15 per cent to £192.1 million in 2015, while pre-tax profit was up 12 per cent to £137.1 million. In total, Rightmove attracted 1.3 billion visits to its website in 2015, up 18 per cent compared to a year earlier. Rightmove’s underlying operating margin also increased from 74.6 per cent a year ago to 75.1 per cent. This comes as a blow to its competitors, especially Agents’ Mutual, which had hoped to break Rightmove’s stronghold on the market with the launch of OnTheMarket. Zoopla announced last week that it also increased its agent members by one per cent to 12,841, indicating that…

Read More »