OnTheMarket plc 3,500+ branches contracted since Admission (3398R)

TIDMOTMP

RNS Number : 3398R

OnTheMarket plc

14 June 2018

14 June 2018

OnTheMarket announces listing agreements with over 9,000 agent branches, adding 3,500+ branches since Admission to AIM in February

OnTheMarket plc, the agent-backed company which operates the OnTheMarket.com property portal, is pleased to announce that as of 13 June it has signed listing agreements with UK estate and letting agents with more than 9,000 offices. This increase of over 3,500 branches since Admission on 9 February represents growth of more than 63%. The Company believes that it has listing agreements with approximately 48% of UK residential estate and lettings agency branches.

The Company's progress in adding agent offices since Admission on 9 February 2018 is shown in the following table:

 
 Date          Offices added      Offices in contract 
                since Admission 
 9 February    -                  5,500 
              -----------------  -------------------- 
 14 March      1,000              6,500 
              -----------------  -------------------- 
 25 April      2,000              7,500 
              -----------------  -------------------- 
 11 May        2,500              8,000 
              -----------------  -------------------- 
 25 May        3,000              8,500 
              -----------------  -------------------- 
 13 June       3,500              9,000 
              -----------------  -------------------- 
 

While steadily increasing its core agent customer base, OnTheMarket ran in May its heaviest weight of national TV advertising since the launch period of OnTheMarket.com, as well as its first outdoor poster campaign across London. A key theme of its advertising campaigns is the "New & exclusive" properties, whereby many agents choose to list their new instructions at OnTheMarket.com in advance of listing on other portals, giving OnTheMarket a competitive advantage by appealing to active property seekers, who are the Group's key consumer focus, and in turn providing listing agents with high quality leads.

As announced on 7 June 2018, traffic to the portal in the current financial year between 1 February and 31 May reached 42.2m visits*, compared with 21.9m in the same period in 2017.

Increased consumer engagement with OnTheMarket.com is reflected by the growth in property alerts set up by users - over one million active alerts, which trigger automatic delivery to users' inboxes of the details of newly added properties that match their search criteria.

Ian Springett, Chief Executive Officer of OnTheMarket, said: "We are delighted at the strength of momentum and the power of agent support behind our proposition as an agent-backed challenger portal. We continue to exceed our own expectations of the overall number of agents signing up, achieving this latest milestone of 9,000 contracted offices just three weeks after reaching 8,500 offices."

* Visits comprise individual sessions on OnTheMarket.com's web based portal or mobile applications by users for the period indicated as measured by Google Analytics.

ENDS

For further information, please contact:

 
 TB Cardew (Financial PR adviser)    0207 930 0777 / [e-mail] 
 Ed Orlebar                          07738 724 630 
 Tom Allison                         07789 998 020 
 

Background on OnTheMarket:

Launched in January 2015, the OnTheMarket.com property portal was created by Agents' Mutual Limited, a company limited by guarantee and founded in January 2013 by a small group of agent firms, with the objective of creating a new portal to challenge the dominance of Rightmove and Zoopla. Both groups were felt to be using their strong positions relative to their agent customers to impose significant price increases for their portal services.

The Agents' Mutual proposition of an agent-backed portal offering a premier search service to property-seekers whilst charging fair prices to agents quickly found support among a very wide group of leading independent agents across the UK. These firms funded the venture by way of loan note subscriptions and committed to list with the portal once it went live.

OnTheMarket is the third biggest UK residential property portal provider in terms of traffic and has, with backing from its agent owners, developed unique sources of competitive advantage such as the "New and Exclusive" property listings.

OnTheMarket plc was admitted to AIM on Friday 9 February 2018 alongside a capital raise of GBP30 million to support a new growth strategy for the business.

This information is provided by RNS, the news service of the London Stock Exchange. RNS is approved by the Financial Conduct Authority to act as a Primary Information Provider in the United Kingdom. Terms and conditions relating to the use and distribution of this information may apply. For further information, please contact [e-mail] or visit www.rns.com.

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June 14, 2018 02:00 ET (06:00 GMT)