Guaranteed Rent London | Property web site Rightmove led the media sector higher on Wednesday after a sparkling update covering the first half of the year.
Profit after tax increased 36% to ?29.3m while underlying operating profit rose 28% to ?42.6m for the six months ended 30 June 2012. Revenue jumped 23% to ?57.9m.
Average revenue per advertiser rose 20% to ?518 per month while the number of advertisers was little changed at 18,299 from 18,276 the year before.
The increased spend came from price rises and sales of additional advertising products, Rightmove said, with 80% of agents and new homes developers now taking at least one additional advertising product compared to 70% at this time last year.
The site is thriving despite the generally moribund nature of the UK housing market. House prices in the UK fell by 0.7% month-on-month, reaching ?164,389 in July, according to the latest survey data out this morning from Nationwide.
If macro issues were not having much effect on the share price movement of Rightmove, they were on stocks in the industrials metals and mining sector.
Manufacturing data from China was slightly below expectations. The final HSBC Chinese manufacturing sector purchasing managers? index (PMI) rose to 49.3 points in July, after a reading of 48.2 in June, according to survey compiler Markit. The July reading was a downward revision to the provisional reading of 49.5.
The news sent miners and steel giant Evraz into decline.