Rightmove profit up 11%, sounds upbeat note on the outlook

Rightmove posted an 11% rise in 2018 pre-tax profit on Friday, with growth in revenue and traffic, as the company said the UK online property advertising market is set to continue growing.

Pre-tax profit increased to £198.3m from £178.2m in 2017, on revenue of £267.8m, up 10% and driven by the company’s agency and new homes businesses. Meanwhile, operating profit was up 11% to £198.6m and the final dividend was boosted 11% to 4p a share.

In terms of traffic, visits to the site were up over 4% during the year, averaging nearly 132 million per month, while time on site was up 5% at over 1 billion minutes per month. Average revenue per advertiser increased by £83 to £1,005 a month.

Chief executive officer Peter Brooks-Johnson said: "2018 was another strong year for Rightmove. We extended our market leadership and reinforced our position as the place consumers turn to first when thinking about moving home. In doing so, we demonstrated that Rightmove is a business which can continue to grow strongly even in uncertain times. We focus relentlessly on creating a more efficient marketplace, constantly innovating to provide deeper insights to our agent and developer customers, and an even simpler, more intuitive user experience for home hunters.

"Visits and time spent on site both continued to grow, with over 1.5 billion visits from consumers over the year. The resilience of our customer base is shown by our stable membership numbers, with particularly notable growth coming from new homes developments. I'm excited by our plans for 2019 as we continue to focus on innovation to make home moving easier."

Rightmove said the UK online property advertising market will continue to grow despite Brexit-related uncertainties. The group said it remains "vigilant" to the macro environment, but that it is not materially impacted by the property market cycle except in the most extreme circumstances.

"With ARPA continuing to grow and our commitment to further innovation, the board remains confident of making further progress in 2019."