MUMBAI: Real estate portal Magicbricks has reported 74% on-year growth in the second quarter, with revenue touching `55 crore as it stayed on course for high double-digit breakout growth in the category.
The previous quarter saw revenue grow 48% on-year to Rs 47.5 crore, Magicbricks said in a release. The company also said the Magicbricks Android app had hit five million downloads, making it the only one in its category to achieve the milestone. Magicbricks is part of Bennett, Coleman & Co Ltd, which publishes ET. Robust performance in consecutive quarters has put the company on a high growth trajectory in this fiscal and signals early signs of a much-awaited turnaround for the real estate industry that witnessed a slowdown in the past three years.
The company attributed September quarter performance to a combination of factors, such as substantial increase in traffic and searches, gains in wallet share in the developer segment ahead of the festive season, successful high-impact and exclusive digital marketing campaigns for select customers, launch of an exclusive-dealsonly website, e-auctions and certified agents programme. These factors underpinned performance across most key metrics like traffic, supply and average revenue per advertiser (ARPA), consolidating Magicbricks position as the preferred portal for buyers and sellers, the release added.
“Scale has now started helping us gain significant leadership across multiple key metrics, as we continue to widen our leadership,” said Sudhir Pai, chief executive, Magicbricks. “We have innovation-centric DNA and have built not just the largest suite of products for buyers and sellers but also several unique solutions such as a chat-based solution for privacy, an auction platform, a deals section and services for do-it-yourself sellers.” The successful execution of highimpact and exclusive digital marketing campaigns for top developers across India indicates that Magicbricks has clearly emerged as the preferred online marketing channel for the industry. According to the release, these campaigns were designed to drive transactions for launches by developers and have been immensely successful in delivering results ahead of the festive season.
These high-impact campaigns not only helped developers sharpen their media plan but also optimised return on investment (RoI) in a bid to grab more customer eyeballs. Apart from a substantial leap in revenue, Magicbricks also leads in terms of traffic and registered buyers.
According to third-party tracker Comscore, the brand had a 48% share of mobile traffic and 41% of website traffic at the end of August in terms of total unique visitors. According to the company, it achieved a run rate of 67 million visits. It also stated that it now enjoys more than 60% of all online listings in India as a result of its efforts in covering the market holistically, which has paid rich dividends in terms of a significant rise in paid sellers on the platform.
At end of September, Magicbricks hosted over 1 million active properties and is adding 55,000 daily. The company reported that during the quarter it had over 50,000 active paid sellers, gaining a 10% sequential on-quarter growth. Of these 50,000 active paid sellers, 3,000 were developers, 15,000 brokers and the remaining 32,000 paying individual sellers or landlords.
According to Pai, the consistent rise in number of paid sellers has been made possible since the market has responded positively to successful innovations and also due to relaxations in the Credit Linked Subsidy Scheme (CLSS) limit that resulted in more inventory becoming available to buyers. This was also reflected in a rise in property searches on Magicbricks that jumped 50%, with cities like Bengaluru and Delhi witnessing a spike in searches by 60% and 65%, respectively. The increase in the limit opened up a significantly large percentage of properties in most cities for homebuyers.
In cities with low average prices (rupees per sq.ft) like Noida, Greater Noida, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Ghaziabad, there has been an average 96% increase in eligible properties in the middle income group (MIG) segment. Tier II cities like Jaipur, Mohali, Lucknow and Chandigarh have also seen an increase in inventory under CLSS.
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