Schibsted-Adevinta vs Ringier Axel Springer: Where do they Compete in Europe?

We at OnlineMarketplaces.com are hard at work behind the scenes building a database of all the world's property portals. The new database will include fields for each portal's business model and specialty as well as a field where you can see the owners and stakeholders of any portal from around the world.

This last field is perhaps the one that has interested us most in our research. The extent to which the big classifieds companies have spread their influence and capital throughout the world of property marketing is impressive and something that surprised us somewhat. These large conglomerates don't always have handy little infographics to show you their assets on a map, so we thought we'd make some ourselves.

This week we take a look at two powerhouses of European classifieds: Schibsted-Adevinta and Ringier Axel Springer.

Schibsted-Adevinta

Like many of the large classifieds companies around the world, Schibsted is first and foremost a publishing company. In 2018 Schibsted decided to reorganize the company and split into two, with the new company Adevinta overseeing the non-Scandanavian online classifieds assets.

Spain

Adevinta runs Fotocasa which is considered to be the #2 player in the country behind idealista. The company also bought out habitaclia in 2017, a portal that has a dominant position in Cataluña and the Balearic Islands.

France

Here Adevinta runs both the leading horizontal marketplace LeBonCoin as well as one of France's most important property verticals in A Vendre A Louer which was acquired in 2017 from the French Yellow Pages (SoLocal). Where horizontal LeBonCoin is strong with smaller local listings, A Vendre A Louer is particularly strong in big cities and with new developments.

Ireland

Adevinta has a very strong presence on the Emerald Isle where it co-owns leading property portal Daft alongside the original founders Eamonn and Brian Fallon through their company Distilled SCH.

Austria

Another joint venture in Austria where Adevinta runs top horizontal marketplace site Willhaben in conjunction with local company Styria Media.

Norway

Here Schibsted is the proud owner of another leading horizontal marketplace site in the shape of Finn.no.

Finland

Another leading horizontals title in Scandanavia that Schibsted held onto after the 2018 split is Okotie from Finland.

Ringier Axel Springer

Europe's largest publishing house, the German company is responsible for print titles including leading German daily Bild as well as a host of leading online classifieds assets across the continent through its AVIV business (which just got a brand new CEO). Ringier Axel Springer's classifieds division had revenues of over €1.2 billion in 2019 much of which came from its real estate titles.

France

The country is perhaps the biggest battleground between these two online classifieds giants. Adevinta may own the leading horizontal, but the leading property portal in the country is Ringier Axel Springer title SeLoger which it purchased back in 2011 for €634 million. The publisher also owns and operates the Logic-Immo portal which it acquired in 2017 for €105 million as well as the specialist luxury property portal Belles Demeures.

Germany

Ringier Axel Springer does not necessarily dominate on home turf, but the fact that the company committed to buy the remaining 45% of the portal company Immowelt that it did not own for €358 million in October 2019 tells you all you need to know about its confidence in the portal's ability to challenge ImmoScout for market leadership.

Switzerland and Austria

In both of these countries, the company's main Germanic portal title Immowelt is well established as the #2 property vertical behind Scout24's ImmoScout.

Belgium

Ringier Axel Springer counts the #1 Belgian property portal ImmoWeb among its assets after acquiring an 80% share in the portal from its founders the Rousseaux family in 2012. Logic-Immo also has a presence across the border in Belgium and is one of the main players in the country.

Poland

Earlier this year RAS purchased one of Poland's leading property portals Morizon and in doing so went up against OLX Group and Naspers who have interests in the market in Otodom and Domiporta.

Slovakia

Ringier Axel Springer is on record as having a "determination to become the leading digital publisher in Central and Eastern Europe" and in Slovakia the company really does run the show through its local holding company United Classifieds s.r.o. which operates no fewer than 5 portals in the country: Novostavby, Byty, Reality, Nehnutelnosti and TopRealty.

Serbia

Since 2012 Ringier Axel Springer has fully owned one of Serbia's leading property portals Nekretnine.rs.