Lamudi Indonesia’s Reason of Acquiring PropertyKita

Couple of days ago, we reported about Lamudi Indonesia’s acquisition towards PropertyKita, a local service similar to the service. The acquisition is regarded as the first done by a Rocket Internet’s startup in Indonesia. What made Lamudi Indonesia took the decision?

Lamudi Indonesia’s Managing Director Steven Ghoos told DailySocial:

“We always look for powerful potential to support our growth, if there’s a good reason to it. PropertyKita has been in the market for five years running and this enables tons of organic traffic as well as creates important relations in the property industry. This is something that we can build to accelerate Lamudi’s growth in Indonesia.”

By the ecquisition, PropertyKita’s traffic has been relocated to Lamudi Indonesia’s, meaning that if people access PropertyKita, they’ll get re-directed to Lamudi Indonesia’s main page. Ghoos explained that PropertyKita’s customers are aware about this.

“PropertyKita’s customers are aware about this and now we may enjoy more marketing exposure as we’ve tried combining both portal’s marketing channels. As for the property seekers, they still get to access PropertyKita, they’ll just get re-directed to the appropriate and relevant page at Lamudi, with more options to fulfill their needs,” Ghoos added.

During a year of operation in Indonesia, Lamudi has had positive growth, which reaches 700 percent in term of the number of listings. The company claimed that it currently has more than 210 thousand proeprty and land listings for rent or sell in more than 240 cities on its platform.

As for PropertyKita, not much can be heard of this service as it seems to be sunk in the midst of the property marketplace competition in Indonesia. The startup, which was established by Ricky Conrad and Ricky Kodrat back in 2008, once held a blog writing competition to celebrate the website’s launching.

In 2011, PropertyKita claimed to have more than 128 thousand property listings, more than 23 thousand property agents who posted ads, as well as more than 40 thousand visits a day.

About Lamudi Indonesia’s future plans, Ghoos explained that acquiring other property portals is one way to grow, but it’s not Lamudi’s main priority. According to him, Lamudi prefers to grow in an organic way by giving its best and building a strong relationship with the customers.

“This works, and the acquisition towards PropertyKita gives us a chance to implement our strategy for a broader customer basis,” Ghoos ended.