Q4 Revenue up 24% at Indian Portal 99acres But Profit Still Distant

The Indian online marketplace operator and parent of the 99acres portal, Info Edge has released its results for Q4 of the Indian 2022-2023 financial year. Highlights of the company's performance for the period include:

• Total company revenue was INR 21,586 million for the year and INR 5,640 for Q4 (INR 4,555 million Q4 2022).
• Total company profit before tax was INR 7,855 million for the year, up from INR 4,584 in the previous year.
• Revenue for 99acres was up 31% for the year and 24% for the quarter on a year-on-year basis.

In addition to the 99acres real estate vertical, Info Edge also runs the popular jobs vertical Naukri as well as the matrimonial site Jeevansathi and educational site Shikasta. While Naukri accounts for around 80% of company revenues, Info Edge's real estate operation represents between 10-15% and is yet to be consistently profitable.

The company's recruitment vertical continues to outperform the other verticals in the portfolio and on a conference call with investors, company CEO Hitesh Oberoi confirmed that market conditions continue to be unfavourable for 99acres:

"Though the price increases have stabilized in the last Q4, the inventory levels are still lowest in the last decade and we're expecting a series of new launches in both the residential and commercial space."

There were some good signs for the real estate sector over the period with increased traffic on the platform and what Oberoi referred to as "broad-based growth across all categories".

In recent years 99acres has been overtaken in terms of traffic by REA India-backed Housing.com (stats below are from Similarweb). The company has also traditionally competed with Magicbricks, a portal owned and operated by the Times of India.