Zillow Reports Record Q4 Earnings, Will Complete Trulia Acquisition Next Week

Zillow today announced record earnings with revenue of $92.3 million — up 58 percent year-over-year, for a non-GAAP EPS of $0.24. Basic and diluted GAAP EPS came in at a loss of $0.27 per share, mostly due to acquisition-related costs. Analysts expected revenue to come in around $90 million and earnings per share of around $0.28. Despite those mixed results, the stock is up more than 2 percent after hours.

“Simply stated, 2014 was a remarkable year for Zillow with record revenue, record mobile usage and record Premier Agent advertiser revenue,” said Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff.

In addition, Zillow today announced that its acquisition of Trulia is expected to close next week on February 17. In July last year, Zillow announced that it would acquire its competitor Trulia for what was then about $3.5 billion in stock. Given that the stock market has changed a bit since then, the acquisition is now valued closer to $1.8 billion.

The acquisition was originally scheduled to close around February 1. But by December 2014, Zillow announced that it had pushed the date back to February 15 to satisfy an FTC request for information. The FTC has now closed its investigation, so the acquisition can go ahead as planned. Caledonia Funds — one of Australia’s largest hedge funds — made a very large bet on these two companies recently by acquiring about 20 percent of Zillow and 27 percent of Trulia.

Zillow also today reported that it saw a 57 percent year-over-year increase in its audience compared to 2013. In the last quarter, the service had 77 million users who, in December alone, viewed 420 million homes. Almost two-thirds of its users now come from a mobile device (and more so on the weekend).

Other key numbers from today’s earnings:

  • Revenue increased 65 percent to a record $325.9 million from $197.5 million in 2013.
    • Marketplace Revenue increased 73 percent to a record $267.2 million from$154.7 million in 2013.
      • Real Estate Revenue grew 80 percent to a record $239.0 million from $132.9 million in 2013.
      • Mortgages Revenue grew 29 percent to a record $28.2 million from $21.8 million in 2013.
  • Premier Agent revenue reached an annualized run rate of more than $268 million in the quarter, compared to a $157 million run-rate at this time last year.
  • Zillow Mortgages saw loan requests grow 66 percent year over year to approximately 7.4 million during the fourth quarter.
    • Zillow Pro for Brokers added 3,800 new brokers to the program, bringing more than 100,000 listings to Zillow during the year.