Scout24 Reveals Plans for Next Phase of Growth via 'Interconnectivity'

The leading German real estate portal operator Scout24 has revealed plans for its next phase of growth via a Capital Markets Day presentation delivered by management to shareholders.

In 2021 the Munich-based company revealed its plans to change its mindset from a linear journey of listings to revenue and in an update to that strategy last week revealed that it is targeting its next phase of growth around 'interconnectivity' between property seekers, homeowners and professionals.

Company CEO Tobias Hartmann praised his staff for surpassing revenue and profit goals set back in 2021 and highlighted the opportunity ahead.

Scout recently posted revenue of €509 million for 2023 with EBITDA up 21% year-on-year and net income up 45%. The company believes that resilient sale prices, demographic tailwinds and the €300 million it has invested in rounding out its revenue portfolio will help fuel growth of between nine and 11 per cent over the next two years at a 63% operating EBITDA margin.

Hartmann said that the portal has seen significant outperformance in its 'Private' segment which houses its consumer subscription products. In its 2021 presentation, the company's projected revenue growth for the segment was between 14-15% whereas actual growth for the segment has been 32.5% since then with Scout24's latest figures suggesting that it has so far only captured 20% of the total addressable market.

As for its core B2B listings and membership business for agents, Scout also outperformed its 2021 growth prediction and is bullish on its prospects.

The portal has had success migrating agents onto premium packages and fuelling ARPA growth and plans to up its game with new membership tiers to be launched this month. The portal's new Gold membership tier will include access to property-related competition analysis and a cost calculator for energy renovations, an area that the company has identified as a growth pillar for both itself and its agent customers.

Where Scout24 underperformed relative to its predictions has been in its transactional-based services. Both Scout's mortgage business and its seller lead business (which sees the portal take a share of agent commissions) saw revenues impacted by high interest rates as transaction volumes in the market dropped by 36% between 2021 and 2023.

The company's latest missive to shareholders also included news of an AI-driven search function already available on the ImmobilienScout24 website. Like similar functions being built by portals around the world, the free-text search input is available as a beta option for the portal's users.

Images taken from Scout24 Capital Markets Day presentation 2023.