Acheter-Louer online turnover up 55 percent
French property portal and free magazine publisher Acheter-Louer reported that it’s overall turnover was up 16 percent on last year, but that the online side had risen 55 percent and now accounts for nearly a third of the company’s income. By comparison the press side of the business saw only a 3.6 percent rise.
In part this is a reflection of general trends in the market, but it is also the return on the company’s efforts in the digital sector, including digital direct marketing services for real estate agents.
According to the company, January 2012 is already looking good with 146 new contracts signed for clients online. Acheter-Louer is looking to expand its services this year notably with mobile products, but the full (and verifiable) figures won’t be published until the end of April.
First French portal for building sites
In France SNAL (National Union of Planners and Developers) launched Snalterrains.com, the first French portal dedicated to available building sites.
According to SNAL (short for syndicat national des aménageurs-lotisseurs), the portal “is a unique location, where all sites on offer are brought together in a targeted way”. To help navigation, users have geo-locating functionality, which displays all listed sites on Google maps in plan and satellite view.
The portal was needed, because building sites are not normally listed on traditional real estate portals, SNAL said.
Jobintree raises another €1.8 million
The financial outlook may be downbeat in France, but Jobintree doesn’t seem to be having difficulty convincing investors to come up with cash. Having already raised €2.5 million ($3.2 million U.S.) in three rounds of funding since 2008, Jobintree now has another €1.8 million for an undisclosed ‘new project’ – thanks to venture fund Alven Capital. Continue reading
French film star launches social classifieds
French film star Christophe Lambert (Highlander, Greystoke) has launched a free classified ads site Surlecoup.fr, intended to be ‘a social network for buying and selling’. “The goal is to create a community and bring a more human side to exchanges between people,” the actor said in media interviews. Continue reading
Use of French mobile classifieds doubles
GESTE (a trade body for online service providers) has published a study of the trends in the use of classifieds on mobiles and smartphones for 2010/2011. Focusing on the classified applications of Cadremploi, Keljob, Logic-Immo, ParuVendu, RégionsJob et Topannonces it showed that usage more than doubled year on year for the third quarter of 2011.
“Online classifieds are more and more geared towards real time” explains Godefroy Jordan, the ex-president of GESTE, “making the use of classifieds on mobile ever more relevant for users who can react faster to snap up a good deal, reply to a job vacancy, or find a property. It is highly likely that two or three years from now the mobile will become the principal platform for classifieds.”
According to the official audit company Médiamétrie there are some 18 million French users connecting by phone – or ‘mobinautes’ as they are termed which is about half the total number of internet users (‘internautes’) in the country.
Geokiwi: French startup aims to blend Foursquare, Craigslist and classifieds.
Is France ready for geolocalised classifieds? Geokiwi hopes so as the start up launches with a message wall for classifieds of all kinds which are geotagged and proposed to mobile users on the move. “You could see Geokiwi as a mix of Foursquare, Craigslist, and Leboncoin” according to founder Jérémy Charoy.
The startup launches today with an iPhone app due this month and claims a modest 600 pre-subscriptions. Geokiwi talks of potential revenue from preferential ad placing but with no major backers announced the most likely interest is likely to be whether it serves to pique other French classifieds services into geolocalised activity.
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