Scout24 Kicks Off 2025 with Double-Digit Growth and Expanding Margins

The Munich-based real estate portal operator Scout24 has reported a strong start to 2025, with first-quarter revenues rising 15.8% year-over-year to €157.6 million. Organic growth reached 12.1%, marking an acceleration from the previous quarter. Highlights of the company's Q1 reporting include:

• Revenue grew 15.8% year-over-year to €157.6 million.
• Ordinary Operating EBITDA was €93.7 million, up 17.9%.
• EBITDA Margin improved by one percentage point to 59.5%.
• Net Income was €50.0 million, up 26.7%.

The positive numbers came amid a "sustained, albeit slow" market recovery in Germany. Commenting on the results, recently appointed CEO, Ralf Weitz said:

“We are off to a good start in 2025, with accelerating organic revenue growth and recent acquisitions performing well. Our interconnected ecosystem continues to grow across the board: We are gaining more customers in both segments, growing traffic and the number of registered property owners is also increasing. Demand for our innovative products is therefore high. We recently implemented an Anthropic AI across our organisation to emphasise our AI-first approach. We are well on track to deliver our 2024 CMD targets, which will transform Scout24 beyond classifieds. While there is clearly macro uncertainty in the world right now and mortgage rates in Germany have increased, we feel confident that 2025 will be another strong year for Scout24."

In the Professional segment, which includes Scout's listing subscriptions for agents, revenue grew by 16.2% to €115.3 million. Subscription revenues increased by 15.0% (12.0% organic) to €82.8 million, driven by a 5.9% increase in the average number of customers to 25,601. ARPU (average revenue per user) in this segment rose by 8.6%.

The Private segment, which sees the portal charge consumers, saw revenue growth of 14.9% to €42.3 million. Subscription revenues surged by 26.3% to €25.8 million, with the subscriber base expanding by 19.8% to 495,150 customers and ARPU grew by 5.4%.

Transaction enablement revenues increased by 25.4% to €27.2 million, with an organic contribution of 12.2%. This growth was supported by a gradual recovery in the real estate market and strong performance in valuation services, CRM, and ESG businesses.

Operating expenses rose by 11.4%, a lower rate compared to revenue growth, indicating improved operational efficiency. Personnel expenses increased by 11.6%, selling costs by 26.5%, and IT expenses by 16.6%, partly due to higher AWS costs and AI integration.

Net income for the quarter increased by 26.7% to €50.0 million, with earnings per share rising by 28.6% to €0.69. Scout24 has reiterated its full-year 2025 guidance, expecting revenue growth between 12% and 14%, and an ordinary operating EBITDA margin improvement of up to 50 basis points.