IPGA Reports Ad Revenue Growth

IPGA Ltd, the company behind the iproperty.com family of portals, has announced revenues of AUD$4.05 million and a loss of $1.32 million from continuing operations for the full year 2009.

IPGA operates portals in Singapore, Malaysia, and Hong Kong and has investments in India and the Philippines. According to the company, underlying the decrease in revenue was 50.1 percent growth in its core online advertising revenue from $1.59 million to $2.39 million.

However, offsetting this growth was the under performance of the company’s magazine business in Malaysia and a reduction in the scale of exhibitions staged by the events business. Revenues from software, magazines and events decreased 34.6 percent from $2.54 million to $1.66 million.

On a half year basis, IPGA’s revenues in the second half of 2009 increased by 13.1 percent and net profit after tax improved from a loss of $1.08 million to a loss of $0.24 million.

IPGA explains that an additional factor in its revenue decrease was the strong appreciation of the Australian dollar. When viewed on a country by country basis in local currency, revenue from its Hong Kong and Singapore-based businesses grew by 34.4 percent and 45.5 percent respectively, while Malaysian revenue was flat.

“2009 was a good year for the IPGA business,” said Shaun Di Gregorio, IPGA’s recently appointed CEO. “We focused our operations on the three key markets of Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Singapore, we focused on our core online advertising product, and we began improving the quality of our management team. The result was that we exited the Taiwan market, achieved a 50 percent growth in online advertising revenues and cemented ourselves as a leading player in the region. I am looking forward to 2010 as a year of continued growth in these core markets.”

IPGA says its focus for 2010 is on rapidly growing the core online advertising business in its three main countries. To do this, IPGA says it will continue to build a strong leadership team as well as significantly invest in sales and marketing at the country level.

Classified Ad Ventures is the owner of propertyportalwatch.com, and also owns a stake in IPGA.

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