When we first looked at the world’s most dominant portals, we chose to see what percentage of the population the market-leading portal reached. The higher the percentage, the more dominant the portal was. However, the problem with this approach is that small popular markets are disproportionally favored.
Therefore a better way of thinking about dominance is how much bigger the market leader is compared to the number 2 player. This presents quite a different picture and allows us to really compare apples with apples. This comparison looks at two dimensions – traffic (as represented by visits) and engagement (as represented by page impressions) for 30 different countries. Google Ad Planner is used for all analysis.
The clear winner on both dimensions is funda.nl in the Netherlands. They are 10x bigger than their nearest competitor on visits and an amazing 52x bigger than their nearest competitor on page impressions. The runner up is realtor.ca in Canada while third place can probably be shared between portalinmobiliario.com in Chile and immoweb in Belgium.
The top 5 dominant portals in terms of visits are:
| #1 Portal | Times Bigger than #2 |
| funda.nl | 10.7 |
| realtor.ca | 9.2 |
| iproperty.com.my | 5.4 |
| immoweb.be | 5.1 |
| portalinmobiliario.com | 4.6 |
Source: Google Ad Planner, February 2012
The top 5 dominant portals in terms of page impressions are:
| #1 Portal | Times Bigger than #2 |
| funda.nl | 52.7 |
| hemnet.se | 14.4 |
| realtor.ca | 14.4 |
| portalinmobiliario.com | 13.2 |
| immoweb.be | 11.7 |
Source: Google Ad Planner, February 2012
Visits
Here is the overall comparison for visits to the market leading and number 2 portals.
| Country | #1 Portal | Visits | #2 Portal | Visits | % Bigger |
| Netherlands | funda.nl | 9.5 | huizenzoeker.nl | 0.9 | 10.7 |
| Canada | realtor.ca | 11.0 | century21.ca | 1.2 | 9.2 |
| Malaysia | iproperty.com.my | 1.9 | homeguru.com.my | 0.4 | 5.4 |
| Belgium | immoweb.be | 5.6 | immovlan.be | 1.1 | 5.1 |
| Chile | portalinmobiliario.com | 1.9 | propiedades.emol.com | 0.4 | 4.6 |
| Sweden | hemnet.se | 14.0 | svenskfast.se | 3.1 | 4.5 |
| Singapore | propertyguru.com.sg | 2.3 | iproperty.com.sg | 0.6 | 4.1 |
| Germany | immobilienscout24.de | 27.0 | immowelt.de | 6.6 | 4.1 |
| Lux | athome.lu | 0.3 | immotop.lu | 0.1 | 4.0 |
| UK | rightmove.co.uk | 31.0 | findaproperty.com | 8.6 | 3.6 |
| Ireland | daft.ie | 3.5 | myhome.ie | 1.1 | 3.2 |
| China | soufun.cn | 38.0 | anjuke.com.cb | 12.0 | 3.2 |
| Australia | realestate.com.au | 19.0 | domain.com.au | 7.1 | 2.7 |
| France | seloger.fr | 9.5 | logicimmo.fr | 4.4 | 2.2 |
| Brazil | imovelweb.com.br | 2.3 | vivareal.com.br | 1.1 | 2.1 |
| Colombia | metrocuadrado.com | 1.3 | fincaraiz.com.co | 0.7 | 1.8 |
| Indonesia | rumah.com | 0.6 | rumah123.com | 0.4 | 1.6 |
| Mexico | metroscubicos.com | 0.9 | mercadoi.com | 0.5 | 1.6 |
| Portugal | casasapo.pt | 0.9 | imovirtual.com | 0.6 | 1.5 |
| Japan | suumo.co.jp | 11.0 | homes.co.jp | 7.3 | 1.5 |
| UAE | propertyfinder.ae | 0.2 | bhomes.com | 0.1 | 1.4 |
| H. Kong | midland.com.hk | 0.7 | gohome.com.hk | 0.6 | 1.3 |
| Argentina | zonaprop.com.ar | 1.3 | argenprop.com.ar | 1.0 | 1.3 |
| Italy | casa.it | 5.5 | immobiliare.it | 4.9 | 1.1 |
| USA | zillow.com | 40.0 | realestate.yahoo.com | 37.0 | 1.1 |
| India | 99acres.com | 1.9 | magicbricks.com | 1.8 | 1.1 |
| Peru | urbania.com.pe | 0.4 | adondevivir.com.pe | 0.4 | 1.1 |
| Spain | idealista.es | 7.3 | fotocasa.es | 7.1 | 1.0 |
| Thailand | ddproperty.com | 1.0 | prakard.com | 0.9 | 1.0 |
| S. Africa | property24.com | 1.4 | privateproperty.co.za | 1.4 | 1.0 |
Source: Google Ad Planner, February 2012
Page Impressions
Here is the comparison for market leaders versus the number 2 player based on page impressions.
| Country | #1 Portal | Page Impressions | #2 Portal | Page Impressions | % Bigger |
| Netherlands | funda.nl | 480.0 | jaap.nl | 9.1 | 52.7 |
| Sweden | hemnet.se | 130.0 | svenskfast.se | 9.0 | 14.4 |
| Canada | realtor.ca | 230.0 | realtylink.org | 16.0 | 14.4 |
| Chile | portalinmobiliario.com | 50.0 | propiedades.emol.com | 3.8 | 13.2 |
| Belgium | immoweb.be | 140.0 | immovlan.be | 12.0 | 11.7 |
| Mexico | metroscubicos.com | 15.0 | zonaprop.com.mx | 1.8 | 8.3 |
| UK | rightmove.co.uk | 730.0 | findaproperty.com | 88.0 | 8.3 |
| Ireland | daft.ie | 130.0 | myhome.ie | 16.0 | 8.1 |
| Malaysia | iproperty.com.my | 22.0 | homeguru.com.my | 2.9 | 7.6 |
| Singapore | propertyguru.com.sg | 29.0 | iproperty.com.sg | 4.0 | 7.3 |
| Luxembourg | athome.lu | 6.8 | immotop.lu | 1.1 | 6.2 |
| Germany | immobilienscout24.de | 450.0 | immowelt.de | 89.0 | 5.1 |
| France | seloger.fr | 120.0 | logicimmo.fr | 32.0 | 3.8 |
| Portugal | casasapo.pt | 18.0 | imovirtual.com | 6.2 | 2.9 |
| Australia | realestate.com.au | 280.0 | domain.com.au | 97.0 | 2.9 |
| China | soufun.cn | 340.0 | anjuke.com.cn | 120.0 | 2.8 |
| Colombia | metrocuadrado.com | 23.0 | fincaraiz.com.co | 8.5 | 2.7 |
| UAE | propertyfinder.ae | 1.8 | bhomes.com | 0.9 | 2.0 |
| Japan | suumo.co.jp | 130.0 | homes.co.jp | 73.0 | 1.8 |
| Argentina | zonaprop.com.ar | 19.0 | argenprop.com.ar | 11.0 | 1.7 |
| Thailand | ddproperty.com | 6.8 | prakard.com | 4.6 | 1.5 |
| India | 99acres.com | 13.0 | magicbricks.com | 9.8 | 1.3 |
| Hong Kong | midland.com.hk | 7.4 | gohome.com.hk | 5.6 | 1.3 |
| Peru | urbania.com.pe | 5.7 | adondevivir.com.pe | 4.5 | 1.3 |
| Spain | idealista.es | 98.0 | fotocasa.es | 80.0 | 1.2 |
| USA | zillow.com | 500.0 | realtor.com | 410.0 | 1.2 |
| Brazil | wimoveis.com.br | 15.0 | imovelweb.com.br | 13.0 | 1.2 |
| South Africa | property24.com | 19.0 | privateproperty.co.za | 17.0 | 1.1 |
| Italy | immobiliare.it | 41.0 | casa.it | 38.0 | 1.1 |
| Indonesia | rumah.com | 6.2 | rumah123.com | 6.2 | 1.0 |
Source: Google Ad Planner, February 2012
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
If you are going to do these comparisons you should really have a better data source than Google Ad Planner.
Lacks credibility
Funda’s the most dominant player in The Netherlands due to smart political play by the Association for Estate Agents in The Netherlands. In a ‘healthy’ competitive landscape Funda would not be this big.
I am proud that i was involved building the first generation of funda.nl and some other versions, this site really rocks
@Henk, every real estate agent can join NVM/Funda, so your point is totally invalid.
@Simon any reason why you favour visits over unique visitors to measure dominance? To me UB’s measure reach whereas visits have a frequency component that indicates loyalty. Also Page Impression metric is dangerous because improvements in site usability can actually reduce page impressions, to the benefit of the user and site perfomance in general. Maybe time on site is a better measure of engagement, although not an easy metric to get.
I’d be interested to hear your views on market equilibrium in terms of market share (revenue, reach etc) for property portals – in short do these markets tend towards monopolies over time, or at least end up with one very dominant player, or can multiple similar sized players compete successfully over the long term?
Robert – thanks for your feedback
I am more than happy to use another data provider however i am not aware of one that is low cost (read free) and globally available.
Perhaps you have some ideas?
Thanks
Simon
@Simon, @Paul – I would be very interested to hear your views on the question of tending towards monopolies, duopolies, or an equilibrium state with multiple similar sized players.
From the perspective of the Estate Agents, more competition is good as it puts pricing pressure on the portals, and forces them to spend on advertising to stay competitive with each other, but it may be that few if any markets can support multiple profitable players when they have to compete on these terms