Rightmove lifts dividend, upbeat on outlook

(Sharecast News) - Property portal Rightmove reported a rise in full-year revenue and operating profit on Friday and lifted its dividend as it said housing market activity gradually improved throughout the year. In the year to the end of December 2024, revenue rose 7% to £389.9m, as estate agency and new homes developer partners continued to upgrade their packages, increased their use of digital products and renewed contracts.

Underlying operating profit was up 4% at £273.9m and statutory operating profit was 1% higher at £256.3m. Rightmove declared a final dividend of 6.1p per share, up 7% on the previous year and taking the total dividend for 2024 to 9.8p a share, up 5%.

Looking ahead, the company said it expects revenue growth of 8-10% in 2025 as it benefits from the full-year impact of Optimiser Edge uptake and further product-led growth across its core business, among other things.

It expects around 1% growth in membership and average revenue per advertiser (ARPA) growth of £95 to £105 across estate agency and new homes developers.

Chief executive Johan Svanstrom said: "We delivered strong results, demonstrating yet again the resilience of Rightmove's business model. Consumers visited the Rightmove platform 2.3 billion times in 2024, and with the UK's largest selection of properties for sale and to rent they spent a combined 16.4 billion minutes searching and using our expanding set of valuable tools.

"We're continuing to invest in technology and products to make the platform even more useful and effective for both partners and consumers. 24 AI-enabled teams of software engineers delivered over 5,000 releases, features and enhancements in 2024.

"We have a clear strategy to further digitise the home moving market, powered by the UK's largest set of property data and insights. There is a long runway of opportunity to both broaden and deepen Rightmove's services on one connected platform, and our team is continuing to drive that momentum in 2025."

At 1040 GMT, the shares were up 3.3% at 664.20p.

Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said: "Property listings site Rightmove painted an encouraging picture of the outlook for 2025 alongside its latest results, implying a reasonable level of confidence the UK property market is emerging from a tough period.

"Being the market leader creates a virtuous circle for Rightmove. Its site has the most listings and is therefore the one which prospective property buyers will go to when looking for their next home. This reinforces its position as a must-have product for estate agencies and provides it with significant pricing power when it comes to securing subscriptions from agencies.

"However, agents can only be squeezed so far, with the competitive threat heightened thanks to US firm CoStar's purchase of rival On The Market in late 2023. Rightmove is trying to address this through innovation - analysing data to provide its customers with more valuable insights. This is reflected in a significant increase in its headcount, in particular in technology-related roles.

"Having rebuffed bid interest from Rupert Murdoch's REA vehicle last year, Rightmove is under pressure to deliver for shareholders and the latest numbers go some way towards doing that."