EYE NEWS UPDATE: Rightmove ‘average Revenue Per Advertiser’ Soars By 11%

Rightmove PLC has just published its Results for the year ended 31st December 2022

Its operating profit rose 7% on the previous year, to £241.3m.

Average revenue per advertiser (ARPA) is up 11% to £1,314 per month (2021: £1,189); second-highest year ever for absolute ARPA growth.

Total membership stayed flat at 19,014 (2021: 18,969), with Agency branches down 178 and New Homes Developments up 223 since the start of the year.

£197.7m (2021: £238.8m) was returned to shareholders through the share buyback programme and dividend payments.

Rightmove says it experienced resilient traffic despite a significantly less frenetic property market than 2021, with a total of 16.3 billion minutes spent on the platform in the year (2021: 18.3 billion).

There was a continued uptake of the premium Optimiser 2020 package, with 34% of independent agents now subscribing, up from 21% in December 2021.

Chair, Andrew Fisher said:

“The Group’s results reflect the strength of our business model and core value proposition, delivering underlying operating profit of £245.4m (2021: £231.0m) and operating profit of £241.3m (2021: £226.1m) from revenue of £332.6m (2021: £304.9m).

“Underlying earnings per share were 23.8p (2021: 21.8p) and basic earnings per share 23.4p (2021: 21.3p).

“Our cash position at the year-end was £40.1m (2021: £48.0m), having returned all surplus cash to shareholders.

“In keeping with our policy of returning free cash to our shareholders, £197.7m (2021: £238.8m) was returned through the share buyback programme and dividend payments.

“The Board remains confident in our ability to deliver sustainable returns to shareholders and is recommending a final dividend of 5.2p per share for 2022 (2021: 4.8p). The final dividend will be paid, subject to shareholder approval, on 26 May 2023, taking the total dividend for the year to 8.5p, an increase of 9% on 2021 (2021: 7.8p).

“Our ambition to innovate continually to make home moving easier in the UK and to create long-term sustainable growth for the benefit of all stakeholders is undeterred as we move into 2023 and continue to execute on our long-held strategy for the benefit of our customers, consumers and shareholders.”