North Media Buoyed by Performance of Danish Rentals Marketplace BoligPortal in Q1

North Media, the operator of the popular Danish rentals marketplace BoligPortal, has released its results for Q1 of the 2023 financial year. Highlights of the company's operations for the three months ended 31st of March include:

• Record quarterly revenue for BoligPortal of DKKm 26.5 ($3.9 million), a 17% increase on the comparison period.
• Overall company revenue was down 3.3% compared to 2022.
• Companywide Consolidated EBIT was down 20% at DKKm 43.8 ($6.5 million).

North Media owns and operates several diverse businesses in Denmark including a last-mile delivery company (FK Distribution), a smart lock company (Bekey) and a jobs portal (Offir).

The company's results for Q1 were in line with expectations as North Media's last-mile delivery business suffered a 4.6% drop in revenue and Offr suffered from a greater-than-anticipated decline in job listings. The company's Digital Services segment did see a 3.2% revenue increase largely thanks to BoligPortal which Company CEO, Lasse Ingemann Brodt singled out in his remarks accompanying a press release:

“Our Q1 2023 results were in line with expectations. Once again, BoligPortal delivers record-high revenue and EBIT, driven by a large number of rental units listed, while our other three businesses, and FK Distribution in particular, reported reduced activity levels. We continued to develop our businesses in order to capitalise even more on volume and scale benefits, while staying focused on establishing the future strategic platform for the entire Group.”

The real estate business was profitable making DKK 8.3m ($1.2 million) on an EBIT basis despite a loss of DKK 3m from operation, amortisation and provision for the residual purchase price of the property management platform Boligmanager which North Media acquired in 2022.

Unlike fellow Scandinavian marketplace operator Hemnet, BoligPortal saw listings volumes in the market work in its favour in Q1. The company reported that there were a record number of rental units available in the country during the period.