- Revenue and profit continue to grow
- Premium services becoming more popular
- Commitment to full cash payout confirmed
FTSE 100 property portal Rightmove (RMV) delivered full-year results which were more or less in line with the consensus, leaving analysts little scope to upgrade their headline forecasts.
As a result, the shares drifted off 2% to 553p despite the firm's promise to continue returning substantially all cash generated to shareholders.
HOME SWEET HOME
Despite a ‘less frenetic’ housing market than in 2021, Rightmove still increased its revenue and profit last year as more agents signed up and the average revenue per advertiser rose.
Total income grew 9% to £333 million, while underlying operating profit was 7% higher at £245 million and underlying earnings per share were 9% higher at 23.8p.
Average revenue per advertiser increased 11% to £1,314 per month, the second-highest rate of annual growth in the firm’s history, helped by a marked increase in the uptake of its premium ‘Optimiser 2020’ package with 34% of independent agents now using the product against just 21% a year ago.
Traffic on the site was ‘resilient’, despite activity in the property market slowing to more normal levels after the frenzy of 2020 and 2021, with a total of 16.3 billion minutes spent on the platform last year, down on 2021’s 18.3 billion figure but still 34% higher than 2019’s level.
‘The strength of our results is a reminder of how effective and integral our new and existing products and services are in helping our customers in both faster and slower markets’, said outgoing chief executive Peter Brooks-Johnson.
‘Rightmove continues to be the place that people turn to and return to first, with an average of over 1.35bn minutes spent on our platform every month in 2022.
‘The continuing love home-movers have for Rightmove is testament to the team's focus on providing an easy-to-use leading-edge platform, enhanced with innovation which home movers want.’
FEATHERING THE NEST
Despite the lack of upgrades, investors were treated to an 8% increase in the final dividend to 5.2p per share taking the payout for the year to 8.5p per share.
Including the share buyback, that brought 2022’s total shareholder return to roughly £198 million, down from 2021’s £239 million but still a respectable amount.
For this year, the firm expects customer numbers to continue growing and sees a similar operating margin to last year (around 73%) with no material impact on its costs from higher inflation or interest rates.
Moreover, the company said it was confident of delivering sustainable returns and reiterated its commitment to return substantially all cash generated in the year to shareholders.
