Zillow Posts A Loss Due To Ad Expenses, But Q1 Revenue Up 70 Percent To A Record $66.2M

Real estate marketplace Zillow announced Q1 earnings this afternoon, with revenue for the quarter increasing by 70 percent to a record $66.2 million from $39 million in the first quarter of 2013. GAAP loss per share was $0.16 in the first quarter of 2014 with non-GAAP net income per share coming in at $0.02 in the first quarter.

Analysts expected to post a loss of $0.24 for the quarter. Due primarily to planned increases in advertising expenses, GAAP net loss was $6.3 million in the first quarter of 2014, compared to GAAP net loss of $3.7 million in the first quarter of 2013.

“The first quarter was a terrific start to 2014 with record traffic, revenue and results that exceeded our expectations and strengthened our lead in the category,” said Spencer Rascoff, Zillow’s CEO. “A key driver of Zillow’s success lies in attracting audience and delighting our users with great products and services. In March, traffic hit a new high of 77 million monthly unique users as mobile usage more than doubled year over year, and April just broke that record, attracting 79 million unique users.

“We’re continuing to ramp our marketing investment, and plan to be firing on all cylinders through the busy spring and summer home shopping season, which also helps increase value and opportunity for our agent and broker partners.”

Marketplace Revenue, real estate revenue and mortgages all grew in the quarter. Display Revenue increased 62% to a record $12.9 million from $7.9 million in the first quarter of 2013. As Rascoff explained above, traffic to Zillow on mobile and web hit a record in April with nearly 79 million monthly unique users, an increase of 50% year-over-year.

During the first quarter of 2014, visits to Zillow via a mobile device nearly doubled year-over-year, and in April 2014, more than 460 million homes were viewed on Zillow via a mobile device, which equates to 178 homes per second.

Zillow Mortgage Marketplace saw 5.8 million loan requests submitted by borrowers, up 29 percent year-over-year.

Immediately following the conference call, Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff will participate in a live Q&A session via Twitter co-hosted by Internet analysts Ron Josey, JMP Securities, and Michael Graham, Canaccord Genuity1. Anyone may participate in this Twitter conversation by using the hashtag #ZEarnings.