REA Group Limited (ASX:REA)
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Earnings Call: Q1 2021

Nov 5, 2020

Operator

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the REA Group Limited Q1 FY 2021 financial results briefing. All participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question-and-answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand the conference over to Graham Curtin. Please go ahead.

Graham Curtin
Executive Manager of Financial Reporting, REA Group Limited

Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us to discuss REA Group's first quarter results ended 30 September 2020. As you know, our quarterly numbers are very much top-line results, so we're restricted by the amount of detail we provide. This morning, our CEO, Owen Wilson, will provide a brief business update. Then our CFO, Janelle Hopkins, will talk to the financial results for the quarter. Following this, we'll be happy to take any questions you may have. With that, I'll hand over to Owen.

Owen Wilson
CEO, REA Group Limited

Thanks, Graham, and good morning, everyone. REA Group has delivered an excellent result for the quarter. This is despite the severe impact of COVID-19 restrictions on Australia's property market, particularly in Melbourne. I'd like to start by saying that I'm extremely proud of the resilience and dedication of our people who continue to deliver new innovations and incredible customer support, while so many of them are still working remotely. Revenue for the three months ended 30 September was AUD 195.7 million, a decline of 3%, and EBITDA from core operations, excluding the results from our associates and joint ventures, was AUD 123.8 million, an increase of 8%. This result includes a significant reduction in core operating costs of 18% due to our continued focus on strong cost management and a deferral of some expenditure into later quarters. National residential listings declined 2% over the three-month period.

This was primarily due to a 44% decrease in listing volumes in Melbourne as a result of the stage four lockdown banning physical property inspections in August and September. In contrast, the recovery in New South Wales continued, with Sydney listings increasing 23%. While closely managing short-term operational priorities, we remain focused on progressing our long-term strategic objectives. Our core objectives remain consistent: providing our customers with access to the largest and most engaged audience of property seekers, delivering unparalleled customer value, providing the richest content, data, and insights to empower our customers and consumers, and creating the next generation of property-related marketplaces. Standing alongside these objectives is REA's commitment to sustainable business practices. Our sustainability program reflects the pillars of environment, social, and governance across our operations in Australia and Asia. Last month, we published our inaugural climate change policy.

I'm personally delighted that this includes our commitment to reduce and offset our annual carbon emissions to become certified carbon neutral from this financial year. Turning to our audience position, realestate.com.au remains Australia's clear number one property site. During the quarter, we extended our leadership position, delivering new audience records. On average, over 12 million people visited our site each month in Q1, up 37% year-on-year. In September, we reached almost 6 million more people than the nearest competitor. We received a record 117.7 million visits in July, up 40% year-on-year. On average, realestate.com.au received over 3.2x more visits than the nearest competitor each month. More people are choosing to use our app as their preferred place to search for property.

In July, we had a record number of app launches at 50.3 million, a 46% year-on-year increase, and our app now is downloaded 10.3 million times. These numbers demonstrate the deep connection that consumers have with the experiences we're providing. They also demonstrate Australia's continued enthusiasm for property. We're seeing significant growth in buyer inquiry. Visits to the buy section on realestate.com.au reached record highs during Q1, up 29% year-on-year, and this drove a 30% increase in buyer inquiries. During the quarter, a number of consumer highlights were delivered. To make it easier for people to log into our site and also to drive increased membership, in August, we launched the ability for consumers to sign in from social platforms. This resulted in sign-ups increasing by 39%, with social channels now representing 56% of all logins.

Our members are continuing to track an increasing number of properties, with one in ten owners now tracking their property and over 2.1 million properties being tracked, increasing 13% compared to the June quarter. Looking at our rent segment, realestate.com.au remains Australia's number one place for rent, with average monthly visits of 22.2 million to the rent section, up 25% year-on-year. In August, we launched our new self-managed landlord feature to tap into the significant number of investors who privately manage their rental properties. This new product feature allows self-managed landlords to either connect with an agency via our site or list their property directly on realestate.com.au. Our objective is to provide renters with access to the most comprehensive view of rental properties. At the same time, we want to drive more property management inquiries to our customers.

While it's early days, customer and consumer sentiment has been positive. Turning to our customers, agents and agencies across Australia have not yet fully recovered from the impact of COVID-19 this year. Our COVID-19 support measures continued to be accessed by our customers during the quarter, particularly in Victoria. This included reduced subscription fees, the ability to relist or re-upgrade for free, and our pay-on-sale offering. Recognizing the inherent challenges COVID-19 continues to present, we've decided to defer price increases until July 2021. AgentMatch continues to provide agents with access to more prospects. During the quarter, we saw an 18% year-on-year growth in the number of leads being delivered. We're pleased that over the past 12 months, 31% of leads have converted to listings. We remain focused on providing value to people beyond the traditional property transactions of buying, selling, and renting.

Our financial services business is core to this. During the quarter, revenue increased due to strong settlements and improved broker productivity. As we continue to enhance our consumer experience, new personalization features contributed to a record volume of digital leads from the home loans section of realestate.com.au. We now have almost 400 expert advisors around the country, and we achieved strong recruitment of new brokers during the quarter. Our average client service rating was excellent at 4.9 out of 5. A key part of our strategy is to leverage our unique data to provide rich content, news, and insights to both customers and consumers. In September, REA entered into an exciting new partnership with Apple News. This partnership unlocks a completely new platform to drive increased audience to our property news and insights during a critical time for the property market and the economy more broadly.

Turning to our global strategy, a key pillar of REA's long-term growth is the expansion of our global footprint into large and growing markets. Move Inc, operator of realtor.com, delivered a strong result during the quarter, resulting in a positive contribution on the associates line. The U.S. market saw strong growth in audience and buyer leads following the depth of the COVID-19 impact in Q4. Realtor.com's average monthly unique users across web and mobile sites grew 26% year-on-year to 90 million. Looking at the Asia segment, COVID-19 restrictions across all markets continue to have a negative impact. Pleasingly, Malaysia's audience leadership position remains strong at 1.4x the nearest competitor. Last week, we were delighted to announce our binding agreement to acquire a controlling interest in India's Elara Technologies. This transaction expands REA's presence in the world's fastest-growing trillion-dollar economy, which is experiencing rapid digital transformation.

It also creates an exciting opportunity to leverage the combined talent and expertise of our two companies to become the number one digital real estate business in India. Janelle will talk to this transaction in more detail. Turning briefly to current market conditions, despite ongoing volatility and market uncertainty, Australians clearly remain passionate about property. In October, we received another record month of visits to realestate.com.au, a staggering 125 million, up 36% year-on-year. We also received record views to buy listings, up 31% year-on-year, and buyer inquiry volumes were up 48% year-on-year. This strong buyer demand is fueled by low interest rates and healthy bank liquidity. The announcements by the RBA this week, with even lower interest rates and increased liquidity measures, will only underpin this. House prices remain stable, and we're not seeing any signs of a rise in distressed sales.

That said, it's almost impossible to predict the ongoing impact COVID-19 will have on consumer confidence and unemployment and the subsequent flow-on effects to the real estate industry. It was so great to see the Melbourne market open up again in October. The property sector has shown remarkable resilience to date, and it's our view this strength will continue into 2021. I'd now like to hand over to Janelle to talk through our financial results.

Janelle Hopkins
CFO, REA Group Limited

Thanks, Owen, and good morning, everyone. REA has delivered an excellent result during a period of challenging market conditions, particularly in Melbourne. Revenue for the quarter decreased by 3% to AUD 195.7 million. Core operating expenses were down 18% on prior year at AUD 71.9 million, and EBITDA from core operations, excluding the results from our associates and joint ventures, increased by 8% to AUD 123.8 million due to the continued focus on cost management across the group. Free cash flow reduced by 2% for the period, primarily due to the higher EBITDA being offset by the repayment of a portion of taxes deferred from FY 2020. The remaining tax deferrals will be paid during Q2. As Owen mentioned earlier, the results reflect the diverging impacts of COVID-19 restrictions across Australia, with overall national residential listings declining 2%.

The second wave of COVID-19 restrictions in Melbourne caused significant short-term listings weakness, with volumes declining 44% for the quarter. In contrast, New South Wales showed signs of a market recovery as restrictions eased, with a 23% increase in listings for the quarter in Sydney. Despite lower national listing volumes, Australian residential revenue increased for the quarter, predominantly due to the positive impact of deferred revenue driven by the initial market recovery in June FY 2020, improved product mix, and an increase in add-on listing products, including Audience Maximiser. Turning to commercial and developer, revenue decreased for the quarter driven by lower commercial listing volumes due to COVID-19 restrictions in Melbourne and the current moratorium on tenant evictions impacting other states. Large developer project commencements remained subdued due to lower investor demand and immigration restrictions.

This was partly offset by growth in small, lower-yielding boutique projects, which were assisted by the House and Land Government Stimulus Incentive. Media and other revenue also declined during the quarter, with developer display advertising impacted by lower new project commencements for large developments and reduced advertising revenue in key segments. This was partially offset by an increase in data revenue driven by higher valuation volumes. Pleasingly, financial services revenue increased in Q1, driven by higher settlements following strong submission volumes in Q4 FY 2020 and improved broker productivity. Submissions in Q1 have continued the positive momentum, up 20% year-on-year. The Asia businesses were also negatively impacted by COVID-19, with a decline in revenue across all markets for the quarter. The group's combined share of associates contributed AUD 2.7 million, an improvement of AUD 6 million from the loss in Q1 FY 2020.

This was driven by a strong performance by Move, which delivered a 12% increase in revenue. This was due to increased lead referral model revenue off the back of strong audience growth in the quarter. Move also benefited from cost reductions and the deferral of marketing costs. The group continued to focus on strong cost management, with reductions across all cost categories, resulting in core operating expenses down 18%. The savings are a combination of ongoing cost management initiatives, including COVID-19-related savings, such as lower travel and entertainment costs, plus benefits from an organizational realignment undertaken in Q1 FY 2020. Part of the savings are also timing-related, with the longer lockdown, some planned costs, such as marketing, have been deferred to later in the year. We expect our costs to be weighted towards the second half and continue to target no increase to full-year costs.

Looking forward, while there have been positive signs of a real estate market recovery in all markets following the removal of restrictions, the COVID-19 health crisis continues to create market volatility. In October, national residential listings were down 1%, with increases in Melbourne and Sydney of 14% and 2% respectively, offset by declines in other markets. As Owen covered earlier, in response to the short-term effects of COVID-19 and the inherent uncertainty regarding these impacts on the real estate market, the group will not implement price rises in FY 2021. BIS Oxford recently revised their expectations for new developments, forecasting continued reductions through FY 2022. These reductions, coupled with expected listing volume declines in the commercial and Asia businesses, are likely to negatively impact revenue in FY 2021. The group continues to prudently manage its cost base, targeting full-year positive operating draws, excluding the impact of acquisitions.

Based on the current market outlook and excluding the impact of acquisitions, we continue to target no increase in core operating costs for FY 2021. Expenditure growth rates will vary between the quarters, depending on the phasing of operating expenses, with growth weighted to the second half. On 29th October, REA Group announced it entered into a binding agreement to increase ownership interest in Elara Technologies. On completion, REA is expected to have a shareholding of between 47.2% and 61.1%. Total consideration for the transaction is expected to be in the range of $50 million-$70 million, with $34.5 million payable out of existing cash reserves and the balance in newly issued REA shares. The transaction, which remains subject to confirmatory due diligence and the renegotiation of key management employment contracts, is anticipated to be completed this quarter.

Assuming a completion date of 30 November, we expect group revenue to increase by between AUD 15 million and AUD 20 million, core operating EBITDA, excluding associates, to decrease between AUD 20 million and AUD 25 million, and share of associates to improve between AUD 3 million and AUD 5 million. The revenue and EBITDA ranges provided are indicative only due to the market volatility created by COVID-19. REA Group has a strong balance sheet, low debt levels, and cash balance of AUD 187.5 million as at 30 September 2020. The group has access to contingent undrawn facilities, including AUD 149 million with the existing banking syndicate and a AUD 20 million overdraft facility with NAB to access if required. The business remains in a strong position going forward to continue to successfully navigate current market conditions. I'll pause there. Operator will now open for questions.

Operator

Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star then two. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. The first question today comes from Eric Choi from UBS. Please go ahead.

Eric Choi
Head of Australian Telcos and Media Equities Research, UBS

Thanks, guys, and great result. First question, just for Owen, you've come to a landing to defer the price increase to July 2021. Just wondering if you can give us an update on how you're thinking about the quantum and what add-ons might be bundled with the price increase, if you do one as well. Second question for Janelle, just wondering if I could test my logic on the residential revenue growth. In fourth quarter 2020, we said this was down low- single- digit, and then just thinking in first quarter 2021, listings growth has improved by 12 percentage points, and then you've got depth and deferral offsetting the price increase deferral. It sort of suggests resi growth might have kicked up the high single- digit in first quarter 2021. Just wondering if that's correct.

Just lastly, on the costs, I think you beat the top end of your previous cost guidance by about AUD 7 million. Just wondering how much of that's lower T&E and marketing deferrals, and I sort of get why marketing needs to come back, but is there a chance we could capitalize those T&E savings for the year? Thanks.

Owen Wilson
CEO, REA Group Limited

Thanks, Eric. Look, on price, not surprising. Given the market that we're in and the uncertainty and the fact that our customers are still feeling the effects of COVID-19, we've decided to defer the price increase. As we've described previously, we know we've got some new products coming to market and some new product features coming to market next year. It's our view that by playing the long game here, we can put a higher price rise in July 2021 than we otherwise would have if we'd done a price increase this year. We feel that this is the right decision. It also builds on the really positive sentiment that we've built this year with the customer base. Support measures we brought in for COVID were very well received. They did help stimulate the market, and the customers appreciated that.

I think this adds to that and puts us in good stead for next year.

Janelle Hopkins
CFO, REA Group Limited

I think, Eric, to your question around resi, obviously we do not provide the split of residential performance specifically for Q1, but if I was to summarize the performance, what I would say is that you think about gross listings being down 2%. We have also had clearly the mixed challenges with Victoria and Melbourne Metro being significantly impacted in August and September with listings down for the quarter, 44%. That was really offset by the benefit from deferral. If you remember last quarter, we saw the market coming back in June, so we had more deferred out of Q4 into Q1. If you think about Q1 into Q2, as listings are down in September, we have seen less deferred out compared to last year when last year the market was coming back and September was on the improve. There is less deferral out.

Owen Wilson
CEO, REA Group Limited

On costs, Eric, look, the T&E was known going into the quarter, so that was obviously in the guidance we gave. What we did not know when we gave the guidance previously was how long that lockdown was going to go in Victoria. At the time it was announced, it was for 6 weeks. It then got extended by another 2 weeks, and then it blew out to a lazy 112 days of us being stuck at home in UGG boots and tracksuits. We adjusted our cost base accordingly. We absolutely have flexibility around what we do with that deferred cost over the rest of the year. It will depend on what happens in the market, and that is a bit of an unknown at this stage. We will dial that back if needed, or we will choose to invest.

We've got what it does and gives us great flexibility for the rest of the financial year.

Eric Choi
Head of Australian Telcos and Media Equities Research, UBS

Thanks, guys.

Operator

Thank you. The next question comes from Lucy Huang from Bank of America . Please go ahead.

Lucy Huang
Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America

Good morning, Owen and Janelle. Thanks for taking questions. I've got three. Firstly, are you able to give us some feedback that you're hearing from agents, particularly on the Sydney market? It looks like listings have rebounded in the September quarter, but October has now tapered off a bit to 2% listings growth. What's the feedback on why sellers aren't sliding back into the market, or when do they see them kind of really starting to list their properties there? Secondly, in terms of AgentMatch, you mentioned that the conversion rate has improved slightly. I'm just wondering if you've thought about the monetization model a bit further and what kind of model you are perhaps leaning more towards now at this point in time?

Just thirdly, just in terms of depth growth, are you able to give us an indication as to how much of that revenue offset was driven by depth uptake? And maybe which states did you see a better penetration rate this time around in terms of those premier core contracts? Thanks.

Owen Wilson
CEO, REA Group Limited

Thanks, Lucy. I think I'll take the first two questions and then hand over to Janelle to talk about depth. You are seeing the increase or the growth in listings start to diminish in Sydney. I think there's two factors at play here that we're hearing from our customers. One is, obviously, there's a lot of pent-up demand from the restrictions that were in place, and so we saw a lot of that volume come back to the market in Sydney, and that's why we saw those exceptional growth rates in the first quarter. That is coming back to more normalized levels. The other factor that's at play is the comparables from October and November last year were a lot stronger. You are comparing it to a much stronger base, and so again, that's why that's impacting those growth rates.

In terms of AgentMatch, yeah, we're delighted with the conversion of those leads into listings, and I can tell you our customers are delighted by that as well. This is really meaningful business for them. We have firmed up our thinking on how we will go to market with monetization, but that will be held back until we're ready to announce that to the market. It is commercially sensitive. We're pretty excited about what we'll be bringing to market in the next half, but we'll need to just keep that under wraps until we're ready to release it.

Janelle Hopkins
CFO, REA Group Limited

Lucy, in response to your question around depth growth, we think about penetration nationally that has been impacted marginally by the substantial decline in Melbourne and Victoria for the quarter. What we have been pleased about is that premier penetration is continuing to increase year-on-year, so that's a good outcome.

Lucy Huang
Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. The next question comes from Kane Hannan from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Kane Hannan
Equity Research Analyst, Goldman Sachs

Morning, guys. Congratulations on the result. Just the 18% reduction in costs again, but no change in your full year range. We read that there's no change in expectations around listings this year from what you guys had in August. Just interested if you comment on that. Secondly, just around the deferred price rises and the increased penetration of the add-on listings, just wondering if there's any relationship between those two things, whether you've got some customers having excess budgets they can spend elsewhere. Obviously, appreciated it's challenging times out there. If you just quantify the revenue impact from the add-on listings. Finally, just the rental side of things. Just interested what the self-managed landlord feature, I suppose the revenue opportunity that opens up for you guys. If you could talk a bit about the pricing model for the self-managed feature. Cheers.

Owen Wilson
CEO, REA Group Limited

On the cost question, Kane, look, we haven't changed our guidance for the full year, and that is around we said no cost increase. It's around at this stage, our outlook hasn't changed for listings. Obviously, we don't publish that, and it's incredibly hard to predict. As we sit here today with the markets open, and provided we don't have further COVID-19 impact, we would expect a fairly positive listings environment next year because we're going to cycle through those COVID-19 months, particularly April and May of this year. What we're giving there in that guidance is a bit of flexibility. We've obviously started well. We can choose to invest that excess savings from the first quarter, or we can choose not to, depending on what the market's doing.

Quite frankly, that flexibility also goes to which line of the cost that we might want to spend on. Whilst we've deferred marketing, it doesn't mean it has to be spent on marketing. Whilst we've deferred other expenditure, it doesn't have to mean it's spent there as well. It just gives us that greater flexibility. In terms of add-on listing products, look, it's a small increment. Obviously, we don't disclose down to that level of detail, particularly at the quarters. It's a small change there. In terms of the private landlord product, we've priced that in line with the top tier of our rental customers. What we wanted to make sure is that we weren't giving private landlords a better deal than our agent customers who provide the bulk of our revenue in the rental space.

As I said, the feedback so far has been incredibly well, but it's going to be a tiny increment this year. There is a big education process to actually get the message out there to private landlords that they can do this when for many years they haven't been able to. It will take a while for that to ramp up to something more meaningful.

Kane Hannan
Equity Research Analyst, Goldman Sachs

Cheers, guys. Sorry, just quickly, just AgentMatch pricing. Is there any chance we see that before July 21?

Owen Wilson
CEO, REA Group Limited

You'll see the monetization of the seller side of things starting from July 2021. We'll be rolling that out next half. For a product rollout like that, you normally need to give the market kind of 3-4 months lead time. We'll start the rollout in kind of March, April, but that we know financial impact this year.

Kane Hannan
Equity Research Analyst, Goldman Sachs

Perfect. Thanks, guys.

Operator

Thank you. The next question comes from Craig Wong-Pan from CLSA. Please go ahead.

Craig Wong-Pan
Equity Research Analyst, CLSA

Morning. Just first question on the revenue deferrals. Could you explain that to me a bit more, just how that takes place? I guess, is there any unwind of that? That is, I guess, when that might occur? Second question, just on the cost, I mean, quite impressive cost outcome there. Could you provide any split of what the drivers were? So between kind of cost management initiatives, efficiencies, and the deferral of marketing spend, how much of each of those might have contributed to the cost outcome for this quarter? Thanks.

Janelle Hopkins
CFO, REA Group Limited

On the deferral, because of the fact that we recognize the revenue over the time that the listings are on site, say, for example, premier rules over 60 days, therefore the revenue gets recognized over that period of time. What we've flagged in the result is that because of the fact that listings were stronger in June, some of that was deferred into Q1. As we flagged going out of Q1 into Q2, the fact that listings are lower than what we saw in prior year, there is less deferral going out into Q2, so we got the benefit of that over time. In relation to cost, we're not providing the specific split between marketing and cost out.

If we think about we did the organizational realignment back in September 2020, we have the ongoing savings of that coming through, which is the permanent savings. T&E, I mean, it's not a large number, but still a small number that's provided benefit. Marketing, we are continuing to spend on marketing, but if we think about the different types of marketing, there's customer marketing that we have deferred and consumer marketing that is a bit down to time, but as Owen flagged, we are looking to reinvest that back into the second half of the year.

Operator

Okay. Thank you. Thank you once again. To ask a question, please press star one on your phone. The next question comes from Entcho Raykovski from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.

Entcho Raykovski
Analyst, Credit Suisse

Hi, Owen. Hi, Janelle. I've got three. The first one, apologies if I missed this, but can you quantify the benefit of the deferred revenue for the quarter? That would be quite useful just to get a sense for what the underlying growth is. Secondly, can you talk about what happened to rental listings in Q1? I'm conscious that that's something you provided at the FY 2020 result, so we might just get used to getting it. I guess interested in whether rental is now becoming a more meaningful portion of resi revenues. Finally, Owen, you noted that 48%—you've seen a 48% increase in buyer inquiry volumes. Are you able to comment on any work that you've done for agents or for developers in terms of buyer lead or buyer inquiry scoring?

I guess what I'm getting to is, whether you have any idea or sense of the quality of those new leads, whether they're high-quality leads or whether they're essentially just people browsing?

Janelle Hopkins
CFO, REA Group Limited

Entcho, on deferral, look, we're not disclosing the specific quantum of deferral on the overall result for the year, for the quarter, I should say. In relation to rental, look, it was a challenging quarter for the rental market. The overall listings were down close to double digits, but pleasingly, we did see the revenue overall up in the rental for the quarter. We did see increased penetration as aligned to the premier penetration for buyers, so that was a good outcome. We saw some additional benefit from things like our tenant verification product, where we had additional of those this quarter versus last year. Overall, pleased with how rentals performed.

Owen Wilson
CEO, REA Group Limited

Buyer inquiry. It is genuine buyer inquiry. If you talk to any of the banks, there is a massive battle going on at the moment for market share of mortgages. A couple of the banks, and you would see this in the results that they published in the last couple of weeks, maybe pulled the wrong lever earlier this year and lost a bit of market share, worried about the impacts of COVID-19, and they are all trying to claw that back at the moment. People do have access to finance. The inquiry we are seeing is genuine. Talking to customers, though, what they are seeing at the moment is that people are making inquiries and using that to eliminate properties from their search process.

They're actually seeing less people wanting to go and inspect the properties because it's a combination of the quality of the information they can get from our site, couple that with a few inquiries on the property, and they get to eliminate and reduce the amount they actually have to go and physically inspect. The agents are telling us these are real buyers.

Operator

Okay. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Once again, to ask a question, please press star one on your phone. The next question comes from Anthony Porto from Morgans Financial. Please go ahead.

Anthony Porto
Senior Research Analyst, Morgans Financial

Hi, guys. Congratulations on the result. Look, most of mine have been answered, but just quickly on Move, given what you stated on Elara, I assume that the earnings benefit all came through in Move. I guess that has come through a lot quicker than what we thought, just what I thought, just the ability to kind of maintain that and what has really been driving that, apart from the 12% revenue increase.

Owen Wilson
CEO, REA Group Limited

Yeah. Look, Move had a very strong quarter. There's no doubt about that. You're seeing, again, a few things at play here. One, there was a very healthy rebound in the U.S. market. If you look at kind of listing volumes and property transactions in Q4, they were well down with the COVID-19 impact. Amazingly, despite ongoing COVID-19 numbers over there, the property market has just powered on. We have seen that volume come back into the market. The real driver of that revenue is the benefit of the Opcity acquisition that we made. We're seeing a much bigger conversion of leads through the Opcity referral model. That, coupled with increased leads and increased conversion, is really driving a strong underlying result for Move.

Anthony Porto
Senior Research Analyst, Morgans Financial

I just guess on the cost base for Move going forward, is there anything we should be worried about?

Owen Wilson
CEO, REA Group Limited

Oh, no. Look, no, nothing to be worried about. Obviously, with COVID-19, they took the same sort of actions that we took. They reduced their costs across all lines. I think they flagged in their call that, like us, they've brought their costs down very healthily this quarter. They will be wanting to reinvest some of those costs in the remaining quarters to continue this growth momentum that they're seeing on the top line.

Anthony Porto
Senior Research Analyst, Morgans Financial

Great. Thanks, guys.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is a follow-up from Craig Wong-Pan from CLSA. Please go ahead.

Craig Wong-Pan
Equity Research Analyst, CLSA

Hi. Just a question on your app downloads. I mean, you mentioned that there's been strong growth in that. I was wondering, is there any benefit for you if a customer or, sorry, a buyer inquirer looks at it on an app versus a website? Is there any sort of benefit in terms of data analytics or anything like that?

Owen Wilson
CEO, REA Group Limited

No, not really. We can collect the same data from both the app and the website, so there's no real change. The real benefit from us is that app users tend to be more logged in, so we kind of know who they are. And so from an identity perspective, that helps, but that's the only real difference.

Craig Wong-Pan
Equity Research Analyst, CLSA

Okay. Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. At this time, we're showing no further questions. I'll hand the conference back to Mr. Wilson.

Owen Wilson
CEO, REA Group Limited

Okay. Thanks, everyone, for joining us today. We are very pleased with our results for the quarter, particularly given the extraordinary circumstances in which it was delivered. We look forward to updating you again when we release our half-year results. Thanks for attending.

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