Lifull's Revenue in Line With Expectations in Q3 as Integration of FazWaz and Lamudi MX Continues

The Japanese real estate portal and aggregator operator Lifull has released a report on its performance for the third quarter of the Japanese financial year. Highlights from the period include:

• Quarterly revenue was JPY 8,825 million ($62 million), up 2% on the comparison period in 2022.
• Operating profit was JPY 744 million ($5.2 million), up from JPY 109 million in the comparison period.

Lifull operates the Homes.co.jp portal domestically as well as international aggregators Mitula, Trovit and Nestoria which together with portal assets such as dotproperty, Hipflat, LaEncontré, and Properati form its Lifull Connect overseas segment. The company also recently added Thai end-to-end operator FazWaz and the Mexican portal Lamudi to its long list of overseas assets.

Revenue at Lifull was in line with the company's full-year forecast and there was year-on-year revenue and profit growth. Although the Japanese market recovery has been slower than the company expected, the profit margins of Lifull's main portal business have improved over the last three quarters largely thanks to a 17% reduction in ad spending.

Homes is the third player in terms of traffic in the Japanese market and is on a journey to transform itself into what the company calls a 'Super Hyper Assistant' by personalizing user experience and using AI to match users with agents.

Lifull's overseas segment was profitable for the second quarter in a row but its aggregation business continues to be heavily impacted by portals decreasing the money they are spending on traffic and a general decline in third-party display ads.

The company's report noted that although progress for the Overseas segment was slightly behind schedule, the portal and transaction part of the business was over-performing.

Lifull said that the integration of Lamudi and FazWaz has so far been smooth. Lamudi customers have seen their listings integrated to Lifull Connect's network, improving their visibility and FazWaz is currently testing its business model in the lucrative UAE market.