Finnish Portal Operator, Alma Media Sees Marketplace Revenues Rise in 2021 Earnings Report

The operator of the leading Finnish real estate portals, Alma Media has released its filings for Q4 and the full financial year 2021. Highlights from the company's report include:

• Company-wide revenue (€275 million) increased by 19.8% compared to 2020.
• Operating profit up from €43 million to €56.8 for the year.
• Revenue in the company's Marketplaces segment increased 75% on q4 of 2020 and up 64% on a whole year basis with revenue of €4.3 million for the company's real estate marketplaces.

As well as many regional media titles, Alma Media owns and operates the market-leading Etuovi real estate portal as well as the Vuokraovi rentals portal in Finland as well as several other job and car classifieds brands in Finland and in Central Europe. The only serious competitor in the country is the Schibsted-owned dual jobs and real estate marketplace Oikotie.

Alma, like many portal operating businesses around the world, sees a big future in the business of moving towards real estate transactions and has hinted at this by increasing its stake in the the digital housing transaction service DIAS Oy to 80.5 per cent in December 2020.

The company's release to the market this week contained a hint that Alma Media would continue down this path

"The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the ongoing digitalisation process and increased the demand for
related services and solutions. The change presents new digital business opportunities in areas such as the subscription business, housing and property transactions, online professional training and online buying."

Like many tech and classifieds companies, Alma Media's stock has seen a turbulent time over the last 12 months and despite a decent earning report was trading at around the same price as it was at this time last year at the time of writing.