Real estate portal 99acres narrows losses in Q4

Property portal 99acres.com has shrunk its losses in the quarter through March from the previous three months while growing its revenue.

The portal, operated by Info Edge (India) Ltd, posted a pre-tax loss of Rs 13.37 crore for the fourth quarter of 2015-16 from a loss of Rs 21.28 crore in the third quarter. Revenue rose 22% sequentially to Rs 31.67 crore in the January-March period from Rs 25.92 crore in the quarter through December 2015.

The portal had narrowed its loss in December quarter as well, from Rs 27.21 crore in the July-September period.

For the full financial year 2015-16, the portal reported a pre-tax loss of Rs 98 crore on revenue of Rs 110.6 crore. This compares with a pre-tax loss of Rs 37.45 crore in 2014-15 on revenue of Rs 100.4 crore, according to the company's annual report.

The company said the real estate market has been sluggish for the past eight quarters and that has caused a slowdown in revenue growth.

99acreas competes with a slew of sites including MagicBricks, CommonFloor, Housing.com and PropTiger. News Corp, the parent of this news website, has a significant minority stake in PropTiger. In January 2016, classifieds site Quikr agreed to acquire CommonFloor. Housing.com is backed by Japan's SoftBank while MagicBricks is part of media house Times Group.

Mumbai-listed Info Edge also operates a string of other Internet properties such as hiring portal Naukri.com, matrimonial site Jeevansathi.com and education services site Shiksha.com. Besides, it owns a majority stake in restaurant discovery platform Zomato.com. (Click here for more on the financial results of Info Edge and Zomato.)

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