Hemnet Grows Revenues 6% in Q1 Despite 19% Drop in Swedish Listing Volumes

The Swedish real estate portal operator Hemnet has released a report on its performance for the first quarter of the 2023 financial year. Highlights of the company's operations for the three months ended 31st of March include:

• Net sales were up 5.8% to SEK 190m ($18.4m).
• Adjusted EBITDA was up 2% at SEK 87.2m ($8.4m).
• Average revenue per listing was up 38.2% to SEK 3,706 ($358).

Although Net profit for the period was down slightly on the comparison period at SEK 50.7m (SEK 52.5m for Q1 2022), the Stockholm-based company managed to grow revenues in a very difficult market.

"Despite current market conditions and lower listing volumes, our revenues from property sellers increased 11.7 percent in the quarter. We continue to grow the average revenue for each listing published on Hemnet and ARPL grew 38.2 percent in the quarter", commented CEO Cecilia Beck-Friis

"This is a result of increased sales of our larger packages and of the value-added service “Renewal”, as well as continued work on pricing. This shows that our investments in product development are creating the desired demand and added value for our customers. For example, the increased sales of “Renewal” are a direct result of the changes we made to make restarting the listing on Hemnet faster and easier."

Hemnet is one of the most dominant real estate portals in any market around the world with no sizeable competition. It also operates in one of the very few markets where the vendor is the party responsible for paying to market a listing on real estate portals rather than agencies.

This gives Hemnet enormous pricing power and the company has grown the average revenue it generates from each listing at breakneck speed since it floated on the Stockholm Nasdaq back in 2021.

Hemnet's ability to grow revenues in a period where listings volumes dropped by almost 20% due to inflation fears is remarkable and, according to Beck-Friis, gives the company's management optimism going forward.

"We have great confidence in our strategy and business model, which has proven to be stable and able to deliver growth also in difficult market conditions. Through our continued investments, particularly in product development, we are ready when the market turns to create more and new business opportunities for the various players in the housing market with an even stronger offering."