PropertyGuru Claims to Have Overtaken iProperty and Reached Top Spot in Malaysia

PropertyGuru has released figures which it claims make it the #1 property portal in Malaysia. In a press release filtered to journalists this morning the southeast Asian portal group cited 450,000 listings, 8 million monthly visits and a 47% market share as evidence that it has taken the lead from iProperty as the country's top property portal.

Speaking about the claim, Sheldon Fernandez, Country Manager, PropertyGuru Malaysia said, “A home is central to every individual and family, and purchasing a home is a huge commitment that requires consideration of so many aspects. Understanding that it is not an easy task, we have always aimed to make this tedious process as smooth as possible for our users."

According to the release, the portal's traffic stats are backed by Alexa, Comscore and Google Analytics and based on a 3 month average for the end of 2020. The portal also claims that engagement statistics from web traffic intelligence service Similarweb give it a 47% market share meaning that "Malaysian home buyers spend more time on PropertyGuru.com.my than any other property website."

On checking the PropertyGuru's traffic performance compared to arch-rival iProperty on Similarweb this morning, Online Marketplaces found that iProperty appears to be ahead in terms of traffic, having reportedly recorded 3,100,000 visits compared to 2,450,000 for PropertyGuru, but that the claims around engagement metrics seem to bear out with PropertyGuru out-performing its rival on all metrics available.

While Similarweb may be the only publicly available, free tool where PropertyGuru's claims can be verified, it must be said that the traffic stats don't take into account mobile app visits, have been criticised in the past for a lack of accuracy in emerging markets and furthermore that the PropertyGuru press release is worded so as not to claim to lead iProperty in terms of traffic measured on this tool.

Although the traffic stats may be up for debate among rivals, one thing that isn't is that PropertyGuru has been upping its game when it comes to tertiary services available to users having recently introduced and heavily marketed its financial services, run a virtual property expo and joined in on a portal trend seen around the world by buying out a local data company to enhance its offering. The portal group is also using the S$300 million in funding received in September from existing backers TPG and KKR to differentiate itself from REA Group and Newscorp backed iProperty by building an end-to-end real estate sales solution it is calling FastKey