99 Group The Latest Asian Portal Operator to Reveal Traffic Figures

The Southeast Asian property portal operator 99 Group has announced what it is calling "a stellar year" with gains in traffic and cash flow as well as the successful integration of new brands. A blog entry on the company's website claims that cashflow increased 77% in 2020 thanks to some "prudent and strategic spending" and that group sales were up 66% year-on-year.

99 Group Chief Executive Darius Cheung said: “We are proud of a stellar year, especially in retaining our status as the fastest growing property platform in Southeast Asia, growing at least twice as fast as our nearest competitor in Singapore and dominating the market by a mile in Indonesia compared to anyone else.”

Figures released by the Singapore-headquartered group include a 101% increase in traffic in Indonesia and a 36% increase in the percentage of traffic coming from organic sources to the company's Singapore assets. The REA Group-backed company acquired the Singaporean property marketplace and data specialist SRX back in November and before that entered a joint venture with REA Group which saw Cheung's management team take on operations at iProperty Singapore and Rumah123 in Indonesia.

Today's announcement by 99 Group follows hot on the heels of two similar announcements from Southeast Asian portal groups. Monday saw PropertyGuru showing off its traffic figures in Malaysia and yesterday we saw what seemed like a direct reply from 99 Group sister company iProperty Malaysia. With Google's influential report on the 'e-conomy' of the region claiming that the COVID-19 pandemic drove as many as 1 in 3 digital service consumers online over the past year, the opportunity for these companies and the competition between them is set to grow further throughout 2021.