Zoopla returns to growth, confident on full year

LONDON (ShareCast) - (ShareCast News) - Zoopla rallied after saying it has started winning back estate agents from its rivals and is confident of delivering full-year results in line with expectations. For the period 1 April to 31 July, UK agency membership returned to growth, with a net increase of 213 branches, having taken a hit earlier this year due to the launch of rival OnTheMarket.

Zoopla said it was encouraged by the reduction in churn and return to growth of the UK Agency business, along with the strong performance of its members who continue to grow their listings. The listings inventory was up 7% to 882,000 from 828,000 and traffic to the platform remained strong, with 45.6m average monthly visits during the period. .

Zoopla said its recently-acquired uSwitch business is performing well and is the number one website in the UK for home services switching.

Alex Chesterman, founder and chief executive of the company, said: "We are very pleased that over the past few months of trading we have returned to growth in our number of UK Agency members.

"Our huge audience of property-interested consumers remains loyal and engaged and our members are enjoying strong performance and a competitive advantage in terms of both brand exposure and leads generated via our platform." Numis said the update was "solid" and outlook comments are "encouraging".

The broker noted that shares were strong into the update and said it remains very comfortable with its 'add' recommendation.

Meanwhile, Canaccord Genuity (Other OTC: CCORF - news) , which rates the sotck at 'hold', raised its price target to 280p from 220p following the results. "Zoopla's management is innovative and creative. It has handled the threat from OnTheMarket and its UK Agency membership is now growing," it said.

At 0948 BST, the Zoopla shares were up 3.5% at 263.30p.