India real estate market gearing up

India real estate markets are bouncing back from the downturn. In India, Mumbai is seeing some recovery, with price increases estimated at 11 percent in 2009, according to Knight Frank

That recovery is apparently being felt at 99acres.com, which saw a 38.8 percent boost in revenue. The portal is still described as being in “investment mode”, however Info Edge says its losses were reduced this quarter.

99acres.com recently staked its claim to the title of top Indian property portal – a title that is regularly contested by competitor websites such as indiaproperty.com and magicbricks.com.

The company was reporting increases in net profit and net sales at the end of 2009, but now quarterly profit is down 4.24 percent from the previous year to a total of 132.23 million INR. At the same time, net sales are up 13.10 percent at a total of 652.6 million INR.

Info Edge founder and CEO Sanjeev Bikhchandani was positive about the results, telling moneycontrol.com that “growth is back”. “[T]he economic recovery is real,” he told the website. “It is impacting our business positively and we are expecting the future quarters to be better than the past.”

1Ropani