Info Edge's real estate portal 99Acres, which depends on online advertising for half its revenues, reported its revenues 39% year on year to Rs 19 crores for the quarter ending December 31st 2013, and reported a small profit of Rs 44 lakh, the company shared on its earnings conference call topline in Q3 grew 39% to 19 crores. Hitest Oberoi, CEO of Info Edge, mentioned on the call, however, that the company isn't chasing profitability at 99acres yet, choosing to focus on increasing marketshare: profitability can be achieved by reducing advertising spends, Oberoi said. Paid listings in Q3 were 5.5 lakhs, up from 4 lakhs in the same quarter last year. Nine month revenues for 99 acres were around Rs 53 crores (give or take Rs 50 lakhs). Things also slowed down for the company in Q3 partly because of low activity, transactions and launches in the Delhi NCR region "owing to the elections in Delhi with no clear mandate to any government", Oberoi said. Advertising Spends Set To Grow Because Competition Has Raised Funds Advertising spends, however, are set to increase: "2-3 of our competitors have raised money recently. They will be aggressive, which will translate into higher marketing spends, and we will have to react in order to raise brand awareness." Questioned by investors about rising competition in online real estate space (competitor Housing.com raised $2.5 million 7 months ago), Oberoi claims that while 99 Acres doesn't appear to have been affected in terms of traffic share (on comscore), they've…
