News Corp., the global company that owns and operates realtor.com through its subsidiary, Move Inc., showed a 3-percentage-point loss in revenue over the past nine months for its news and information services — but it’s no doubt pleased with the performance of its digital real estate services, which showed a 16-percentage-point growth over that same time period.
Overall, the company broke even in the third quarter of fiscal year 2017 (FY17) — which started in July and ends in June — reporting $1.98 billion in revenue and an equal expense tally.
“In the third quarter, we saw particular progress in our quest to be more digital and global, while there was tangible improvement in operating efficiencies,” said News Corp. CEO, Robert Thomson, in a statement. “We posted solid revenue growth and substantial earnings growth, highlighted by momentum in Digital Real Estate Services, where realtor.com continued to expand traffic, revenue and profitability.”
In fact, realtor.com “achieved record traffic in the quarter with 55 million average monthly unique users,” stated the company.
In the earnings call, Thomson noted that the growth at Move was expected — but that the company was careful not to allow any “smugness” to result from its property’s success.
Revenue, profit and loss
Last fiscal year, News Corp. reported a total annual profit of $177 million — and at this time last year, News Corp. was reporting $1.9 billion in revenue but a $149 million quarterly loss.
The company reported break-even numbers this quarter — neither a profit nor a loss. Its revenue for the quarter was $1.98 billion.
Profit & Loss
| Q3 FY 2017 (Reported today) |
Q2 FY17 (Reported 2/17) |
Q1 FY17 (Reported 11/16) |
Q4 FY16 (Reported 8/16) |
Q3 FY16 (Reported 5/16) |
| $0 (break-even) | -$290 million | -$15 million | $89 million | -$149 million |
Revenue
| Q3 FY 2017 (Reported today) |
Q2 FY17 (Reported 2/17) |
Q1 FY17 (Reported 11/16) |
Q4 FY16 (Reported 8/16) |
Q3 FY16 (Reported 5/16) |
| $1.98 billion | $2.12 billion | $1.97 billion | $2.2 billion | $1.9 billion |
Realtor.com’s contribution
Digital real estate revenue increased $25 million (13 percent) compared to Q3 in FY16. News Corp. attributed the revenue boost “primarily … to the continued growth at REA Group and Move.”
Earnings before interest, taxes, deductions and amortization (EBITDA) increased an impressive 92 percentage points, to $75 million, compared to the prior year, “primarily due to the higher revenues noted above, $13 million of lower legal costs at Move and the absence of $7 million of transaction costs related to iProperty in the prior year,” according to News Corp.
This increase in EBITDA was “partially offset by increased costs related to higher revenues and increased marketing expenses,” the company added.
Move’s year-over-year revenue growth showed a 15 percentage point increase to $100 million from $87 million in FY16.
This was, News Corp. said, “primarily due to the continued growth in its ConnectionSM for Buyers product and non-listing media revenues.”
Selling TigerLead in November led to a $4 million decline in revenue, added News Corp. — but the metric measuring average monthly unique users to realtor.com was up year-over-year by 9 percentage points.
And just in March alone, traffic grew 13 percentage points year-over-year to more than 58 million unique monthly users.
