Chinese Portal Leju Sees Revenues Slip 25%, Net Losses of $150 Million

The Chinese real estate portal operator Leju has announced its financial results for the year ended 31st of December 2021.

The company saw total revenue drop by 25% to $534 million and incurred net losses for the period of $150 million as the Chinese market struggled amid concerns around the default of the country's biggest real estate developer Evergrande.

Leju is majority-owned by the well-known e-commerce giant Alibaba having been bought out by its subsidiary E-House in 2020. The well known Chinese tech company Tencent also owns substantial shares in the company having invested some $18.9 million in Leju at the same time as Alibaba's E-House.

Leju considers itself an online to offline real estate company and offers real estate e-commerce, online advertising and online listing services and, like its competitor Beike, has links to the home furnishings industry through its ownership of the furnishings websites of the SINA Corporation.

While no statement from management accompanied Leju's 2021 financials, the company's faltering performance over 2021 was largely in line with its Chinese peers over the same period (including KE Holdings, Fang.com and FangDD). The commentary accompanying the table of financial information for the year simply ascribed the year's results to "a decrease in revenues from e-commerce services and online advertising services".

Chinese portal companies have struggled in the wake of the Evergrande situation which arose in the Autumn of 2021. According to Chinese real estate portal expert Brett Hartley-Wilson though, the incident may not have affected portals as much as some think.