Domain chief executive Antony Catalano has scotched talk of Fairfax Media selling the property business after he held his first briefing with analysts and institutional investors since his tenure began 16 months ago.
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Mr Catalano and Fairfax chief executive Greg Hywood said on Tuesday that agent subscriptions had surged 20 per cent in the past year to more than 10,000. This represents about 92 per cent market penetration.
It comes as the property group steps up its aggressive push to take on Australia's No.1 real estate classified site, REA Group, which is controlled by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.
Mr Catalano said Domain's revenue so far for the second half had increased 56 per cent compared with the previous corresponding period. Meanwhile, its websites were attracting about 383,000 unique browsers a day, according to Nielsen, up 32 per cent from a year earlier.
This compares with REA's telling investors in February it had 33.2 million visits to its websites each month during the half year ended December 31, according to Nielsen.
Mr Catalano said it was "very clear" that Domain Group "needed to operate as a self-sufficient business taking full control of all its assets and operations" when began his tenure in November 2013.
This has led to Domain hiring more than 120 people, mostly in sales, since February 2014. Mr Catalano said he rejected an offer from the board of Fairfax – also owner of BusinessDay and The Australian Financial Review – for a greater marketing budget.
"I said I wanted to invest in people," he said.
"Our reseller and outsourcing agreements had to end. We needed to talk responsibility, set our own targets and be accountable."
But he said becoming self-sufficient didn't mean Fairfax was preparing to float or sell the business.
"It's not on the agenda, that's the simple response.
"I'm not supportive of it [a sale or a float]. I'm very supportive of it staying within the group.
"We have only scratched the service about what it's capable of doing and … Fairfax deserves to see the rewards that this business can generate."
Mr Catalano said downloads of Domain's mobile app had jumped 32 per cent in the past year to 3.5 million, while listings had increased 15 per cent.
He said Domain was only lagging REA in the regional areas of Victoria and Queensland, and the group was now in the "final stages" of the national introduction of its agent ownership model.
The model allocates shares to agencies over three years based on their total spend and listings on its Premium Plus site.
"The response to the agent ownership model has exceeded our expectations. Over 2200 agencies have made an expression of interest," Mr Catalano said.
"We expect to convert the vast majority of these into formal sign-ups into the model over the next few weeks."
Domain also plans to launch a property valuation tool on its website in coming months and an Apple Watch app.
