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Zoopla buys another agency tech provider

Rosy full year results reveal more acquisitions by parent group but OTM battle still biting

Nigel Lewis

If Brexit has damaged the property market this year then Zoopla has managed to dodge the worst of it, its full year results reveal.

Profits at parent company ZPG increased by 44% to £36.7m in 2016 while revenue jumped by 84% to £197.7m. Revenue from agents is up by 5% and the number of agents listing with Zoopla increased by 10% this year.

ZPG says all its sites, which includes Zoopla, PrimeLocation, uSwitch and recently-acquired agent software provider PSG, totalled 600m visits over the past year.

technicweb zooplaPSG is not its only tech acquisition. ZPG also reveal that it has bought Essex-based cloud agency website design provider Technicweb.

ZPG hasn’t quite seen off the OnTheMarket threat despite the upbeat full year results. During a webcast this morning ZPG said its portal-only revenue is down 1%, due to both ‘churn’ created by OnTheMarket and ‘other headwinds’.

But it is clear from the results that the purchase of PSG has been a major plank in ZPG’s strategy to grow its agency customer base by luring back OnTheMarket switchers, and today’s announcement that Welsh agent Robert and Co has returned to Zoopla from OnTheMarket would seem to confirm this. The Newport based company said ZPG’s PSG offering was a key reason for its switch.

Alex Chesterman, CEO, Zoopla Property Group

Alex Chesterman (pictured), CEO of ZPG, says: “The acquisition of Property Software Group has been transformational, allowing us to offer the UK’s only end-to-end solution for property professionals including software, workflow, CRM and marketing tools. As a Group, we now have significant cross-sell opportunities with over 23,000 unique Property partners taking at least of one of our services.”

ZPG says it also invested in online home insurance innovator NEOS in yet another move by Zoopla to create a ‘whole house’ digital services company both for consumers and agents. This includes Running Costs, a household bills comparison service, and MoveIT, ZPG’s sales and lettings lead referrals system.

 

November 30, 2016

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