Zillow reported a revenue of $58.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2013, the most of any quarter yet for the firm and 70 percent more than the $34.3 million the firm collected in the fourth quarter of 2012. The quarter’s net income of $2.7 million also was a quarterly record for the firm.
The record quarter, which also saw a net gain of 3,565 agent advertisers bringing its subscriber total to 48,314 as of Dec. 31, helped bring Zillow’s full-year revenue in 2013 to an all-time high of $197.5 million, 69 percent above the firm’s 2012 revenue.
The full-year revenue high comes with a net loss of $12.5 million for 2013, driven by the firm’s heavy investment in advertising this year, epitomized by its first-ever national TV ad campaign it launched in June.
For example, the company’s sales and marketing expenses of $108.9 million in 2013 were more than double what they were in 2012 ($49.1 million).
That marketing investment paid off, according to Zillow. In the fourth quarter, the firm reported that an average of 54.4 million unique visitors per month visited its network, a 57 percent increase above fourth-quarter 2012’s visitor numbers.
Zillow grew its mortgage marketplace business in 2013 to 11 percent of its full-year revenue, reporting that the division brought in $21.8 million for the year, a 103 percent increase above 2012’s total.
Zillow’s Premier Agent business, built of agents who advertise with the platform, generated $132.4 million for the firm in 2013, a 74 percent increase from 2012 and representing 67 percent of the firm’s 2013 revenue.
In addition, Zillow reported that now more than two-thirds of the visits to its network are from mobile devices and that January 2014’s more than 70 million unique visitors registered a new traffic record for the firm.
“We’re looking ahead to 2014 with significant investments in growing our audience, growing our Premier Agent business and turning up the volume in mortgages and our other emerging marketplaces,” Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff said in a statement.
Zillow also announced today that it has relaunched the New York City portal StreetEasy, which it acquired for $50 million last year, with a new website design and an elimination of the “insider” fees it used to charge consumers to access data and tools like buyer and seller details, past sales prices, search by commute time and more.
Source: Zillow
