Leading Russian Portal Cian Reports 42% Revenue Increase for FY21 Amid Uncertain Future

Leading Russian real estate portal company Cian has released its results for the 2021 financial year. Headline figures from the report include:

• Revenue increased by 42% Y-o-Y to RUB 6,033 million ($81.2 million)
• Core Business revenue increased by 48% Y-o-Y to RUB 5,641 million ($75.9 million).
• Comprehensive Loss widened by 355% to RUB 2857 million ($34 million)

Although the figures in the report do not correspond to any period affected by the war in Ukraine, company CEO Maxim Melinkov did address the situation in comments which express the ongoing uncertainty over a business whose stock was removed from the NYSE in early March having only made its debut in November.

“The past weeks have been marked by unprecedented changes and turbulence in the geopolitical and economic environment in Russia and globally. Although we believe in the strong fundamentals of our business as demonstrated by the 2021 operating and financial results, given existing uncertainty and market volatility, it is difficult to assess how the unfolding events will affect the Russian economy, real estate market in Russia and, consequently, our business and operating performance in 2022.

We will continue to closely monitor developments in the key markets in which we operate and make every effort to ensure that we minimize any negative impact on our business and secure the safety of our partners, users  and employees, while continuing to support the uninterrupted operation of our services. We hope for the peaceful resolution of the current situation.”

Although the revenue figures were up across the board, the company's bottom line was heavily affected by share-based payments totalling $34 million (up by 357% y-o-y), IPO related expenses of $4.1 million, a 49% increase in wages and a 33% increase in marketing expenses.

Rebounding from a year heavily affected by government restrictions, Cian's core listings and leads business saw revenues grow significantly as the segment saw revenue grow 22% in the Moscow region and 88% in other Russian regions as the company re-launched monetization of many markets after the Covid-19 related pause.

Cian's innovative end-to-end rentals product really took off in the fourth quarter of 2021 with revenue going from $1.1m in Q3 to $6.6m in Q4.. The product sees Cian market a user's property with a special visibility package on the portal they then make the prospective tenant fill in a questionnaire that goes out to the landlord to accept or reject, take care of the documentation online, provide insurance and handle payments which they guarantee. They also waive the agency fee and the deposit which is very attractive to tenants.

It was a similar story of growth for the portal's C2C rental product which grew 200% year-on-year, the mortgage marketplace business which grew 168% and the valuation and analytics business which grew 15%.

While losses widened on all of these adjacent business lines, company bosses will have been encouraged by their growth and the diversification of revenue streams.

In terms of non-financial metrics, traffic was up with the portal seeing 19.5 million monthly unique visitors on average over the year, a rise of 18% on 2020.