58.com eyes big opportunities in new house sales in China

China's largest classified online marketplace 58.com Inc said it will establish a prime multiple listing system for new houses by partnering with several property service companies and it hopes that the system will facilitate housing transactions worth 3 trillion yuan ($423.8 billion) over the next three years.

The move is part of the New York Stock Exchange-listed 58.com's broader efforts to provide reliable property purchasing information and a superior service for new home buyers.

Yao Jinbo, 58.com CEO, said the prime multiple listing system will be established by partnering with real estate service providers, including World Union and Tospur, as well as a string of brokerage firms.

According to him, Anjuke, an online real estate listing unit under 58.com, now serves more than 1 million real estate brokers in China, and if each of them sells one new apartment with an average price of one million yuan in one year, the combined transaction volume will be 1 trillion yuan.

"So it is not that difficult to achieve the goal of facilitate housing transactions worth 3 trillion yuan over the next three years," Yao said.

So far, 58.com has already started testing projects with its partners in some cities and the result is quite good, Yao said.

Last year, 58.com has invested about one billion yuan in domestic housing market broker 5i5j, for 8.28 percent share of the company.

The company unveiled its unaudited financial report for the second quarter of 2019 last week. 58.com posted 4.1 billion yuan in revenue for the quarter ended in June, up 20 percent year-on-year and beating previous forecasts. Its gross profit hit 3.7 billion yuan, also up about 19.8 percent year-on-year. Its gross profit margin stood at 89.5 percent.