Glenn Sanford, CEO of eXp World Holdings. | Photo credit: eXp World Holdings
EXp World Holdings, the parent company for virtual cloud-based real estate brokerage eXp Realty turned its first profitable quarter in the fourth quarter of 2019 since the publicly traded company began trading on the NASDAQ exchange.
EXp reported $800,000 net income in the fourth quarter while revenue continued to explode.
“In the past year, eXp has seen milestones in every measure,” eXp World Holdings CEO Glenn Sanford said in a statement. “Most notably, we recorded the company’s first profitable quarter on a GAAP basis since being Nasdaq-listed.”
EXp was in the green in Q4, but not for the year
Net income for eXp World Holdings was reported at $800,000 in the fourth quarter of 2019, or a diluted $0.01 per share. In the fourth quarter of 2018, eXp Realty reported a net loss of $5.2 million.
EXp World Holdings beat the consensus estimate of a loss of $0.09 per share, per investment research firm Zack’s.
For the full year 2019, eXp World Holdings reported a net loss of $9.6 million, or $0.15 per diluted share. In 2018, the company posted a net loss of $22 million, so it improved over those numbers in 2019.
“One of our advantages in the current environment is our virtual working space that supports our seamless operations and rapid growth, and eliminates the need for brick-and-mortar offices,” Sanford said. “We have realized and will continue to gain tremendous benefits from our immersive technology platform VirBELA that enables our remote-working strategy.”
Company revenue continues to explode
Jeff Whiteside | Photo credit: eXp World Holdings
EXp reported $274 million in revenue in the fourth quarter of 2019, a year-over-year increase of 82 percent. For the full year of 2019, the company reported revenue of $980 million, nearly double the $500 million in revenue the company reported in 2018.
“In addition to revenue increasing 96 percent and gross profit up 108 percent year-over-year in 2019, we expect expansion in these areas to continue into 2020,” eXp World Holdings CFO and chief collaboration officer Jeff Whiteside said in a statement. “We also expect eXp Realty to continue to add agents at levels above what competing national brokerages are experiencing and anticipate increased adoption of our affiliated services businesses by eXp Realty agents as well as additional international expansion.”
Agent count continues to grow rapidly
EXp Realty’s agent count increased 63 percent year-over-year, surpassing the 25,000 mark with 25,423 agents and brokers using the company’s virtual cloud platform. At the end of 2018, agent count hovered at 15,570, meaning it increased 63 percent year-over-year.
The company also reported agent growth for the first two months of 2020 in its earnings, noting it reached 27,460 as of February 29, 2020.
“We also continue to see agents join eXp Realty at the highest rate in the industry,” Sanford said. “More and more agents are realizing the advantages and benefits of our cloud-based brokerage model. Now agents around the world are joining us as we successfully launched in the United Kingdom and Australia.”
VirBELA won undisclosed government contracts
EXp World Holdings has another revenue stream outside of normal real estate operation — it owns its own virtual world vendor, which won a number of undisclosed government contracts in the fourth quarter of 2019.
The company is bullish about the future of the platform as a revenue driver, as more and more companies look to work remotely due to the global spread of COVID-19.
“The prospects for VirBELA to become the definitive virtual world platform for business and education have expanded dramatically recently due to heightened interest in lowering the presence of employees in physical offices and co-working environments around the globe,” Whiteside said. “We have a long runway ahead of revenue growth and profitability with the right team in place to meet those goals.”
