By Steve Shipside
The number two and number three in the U.K. property portal market have announced a merger with the clear aim of taking on Rightmove – the longtime occupier of the number one slot.

A&N Media, the consumer media division of DMGT announced the merger that unites its Digital Property Group (DPG) sites including FindaProperty.com and Primelocation.com, with those of privately-owned Zoopla Limited which runs Zoopla.co.uk. A&N Media will keep a 55 per cent controlling stake in the newly merged group.

Martin Morgan, Chief Executive of DMGT commented that: “This merger will create a genuine opportunity to challenge the dominant market leader in the online property sector. We believe that the combination of our respective digital property assets will benefit both consumers and clients.”
Zoopla and DPG have bickered for years about which one of them was number two to Rightmove with each presenting competing claims and metrics. This announcement makes all of that jockeying for second or third place irrelevant and is a de facto admission that the only way to genuinely take on the market leader is by joining forces.

The last round of Nielsen figures for the U.K. market from August painted a familiar picture with Rightmove serenely leading the pack with 3.37 million visitors and Zoopla in second place with 1.95m visitors.  However if you then add to Zoopla’s total the audiences of both FindaProperty, with 1.75 million visitors, and Primelocation with 881,000 the picture changes to put the new merged player ahead with over a million more visitors than Rightmove.

Which means Zoopla/DPG redraws the landscape of the U.K. property classifieds market at a stroke.  In doing so it also ups the ante at a time when all concerned are spending considerable budgets on T.V. advertising in order to claim share in a market which is seeing little rise in property prices and limited lending for first time buyers.

More to follow as details of the story unfold.