Words: Ashley Rigg
Published: 7th December 2009
Google fails to make impact on Australian portal market
Former CEO of REA Group, Simon Baker
published an interesting response to the speculation and hyperbole around Google’s prospective launch into the UK property portal market this weekend.
According to Baker, Google’s launch into the Australian market six months ago has made no difference with REA Group, the market leader, increasing its stranglehold on the market.
Although REA Group shares dipped when Google first announced the launch, the share price has since recovered and is now up a staggering 53%. Traffic to realestate.com.au has also increased by 4.5 million unique users in June to 5.4 million in October.
Baker concludes that much of the speculation around Google’s launch is over-blown and technical and commercial issues will inhibit the search giant from making a significant impact on the world’s property portal markets.
I disagree. Google has made little impact in Australia because it is still testing its offering and has not promoted the service yet via its search results. There are significant hurdles for Google to overcome but they are not insurmountable. For a discussion of the issues involved, see
Google versus the Property Portal.
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User Comments
Hi Dan
Thanks for asking the question. I stil own around 1% of the REA Group. In short, I am backing my comments with my money as I believe they will continue to be the long term winners in that market.
I am interested in your comment that they are slowly gaining ground on REA. What facts do you base this comment on?
Simon Baker
Simon Baker,
Property Portal Watch
You may also wish to ask Simon how many millions $ of shares he still has in REA Australia?
It is true the share price has risen, however Google will be a slow build in Australia and is slowly gaining ground each month on REA.
Dan Harbor,
Harbor Realty
