Bangalore, Karnataka, India
Business Wire India
Quikr, which now operates leading transaction marketplaces built on top of India’s largest classifieds platform, today announced that its real estate vertical has tripled its revenue in the last 12 months and is on track to again grow more than 100% in the next 12 months. The real estate vertical contributed 35% of Quikr’s overall revenue last year. On the back of this growth and its high margins, the vertical also reached profitability in March. In general, Quikr’s strategy of offering transactional models on top of its large classifieds base is delivering very strong results. At the end of FY17-18, Quikr’s overall business was generating revenue at an annualized run rate of $50mm. This year, the company expects to again double this figure.
The fact that the company has realized the steep growth in its real estate business in a year when the real estate market has witnessed multiple macro challenges is one illustration of the power of its strategy. The company now has two transactional real estate businesses, a co-living business to offer shared rentals to millennials, and a brokerage business for home buying. Both businesses derive their supply and demand from Quikr’s sizable classifieds base in QuikrHomes and Commonfloor.
Pranay Chulet, Founder & CEO of Quikr said, “Both transactional and classifieds parts of our business are experiencing steep growth due to their symbiotic relationship. On one hand, we have seen rapid growth by funneling large demand and supply into transactions streams, and on the other hand, our classifieds customers have also been expanding their relationship with Quikr as a result of more complete offering.”
Talking about this milestone he further added, “Right from the get go in our real estate vertical, we have looked at the country’s real estate market on a first principles basis and adopted the best business model for each segment of this massive sector. Whether it is property sales, single family rentals or shared rentals, each of them needs a different model that can address its market dynamics. This nuanced approach has helped us realize a phenomenal growth despite a slow sector last year, and we expect it to continue going forward as well.”
What is working well for each of the formats:
Co-Living: Quikr had entered the Co-Living segment via the acquisition of Grabhouse which had about 800 tenants living in shared accommodations. In a span of 18 months, Quikr has scaled the platform from 800 to 45,000 tenants, making it the largest player in the industry. To scale the business fast, Quikr found a large and ready tenant and property owner base in the flatmate category on QuikrHomes & Commonfloor. This also made the cost of customer acquisition zero making Quikr the only profitable player in this segment.
Brokerage: Since the acquisition of HDFC’s brokerage business (HDFC Realty now QuikrRealty), Quikr has started expanding the transactional services it offers through its in-house as well as partner brokers. Developers, brokers, consumers as well as corporates are benefitting from a more complete bouquet of offerings, whether they are looking for buyers, sellers, tenants or large scale industry data. Since getting access to Quikr’s large demand and supply base, the Realty business is growing more than 25% month-on-month in delivering buyer footfalls in developer projects. While consumers take time to make their real estate decisions, the number of deal closures are also already growing 10% month-on-month.
Classifieds: In FY17-18, when the industry was going through a challenging time, Quikr’s classifieds business – across its Commonfloor and QuikrHomes platforms – grew 75% from April to March. This year, it is again expecting to double in size. The business is also benefiting from its new capability to offer developers an integrated solution which includes a combination of online lead generation and actual conversion.
