Zillow Group Inc., also known as Z, disclosed its financial performance for the first quarter following the market close on Wednesday. The company exceeded the analyst consensus by reporting earnings of 36 cents per share, surpassing the estimated 34 cents by 5.88%. Additionally, Zillow's quarterly sales stood at $529 million, beating the analyst consensus of $508.524 million by 4.03% and reflecting a notable 12.79% surge compared to the same period in the previous year.
In terms of revenue, the company's residential segment demonstrated notable growth, showing a 9% increase year-over-year, reaching $393 million. This growth outperformed the residential real estate industry's total transaction value growth of 4% and also exceeded the company's own expectations. Despite stagnant year-over-year traffic to Zillow Group's mobile apps and sites, with 217 million average monthly unique users and 2.3 billion visits, the company's strong revenue numbers were highlighted as a key factor in outperforming the residential real estate industry.
Zillow Group's CEO Rich Barton expressed satisfaction with the company's performance, crediting the strong revenue figures to effective execution of their growth strategy and expansion of market coverage for the housing app experience. The company has also focused on building and engaging a wide audience, investing significantly in software to facilitate a seamless end-to-end moving transaction process for consumers, their agents, and loan officers. However, Zillow Group's shares experienced an 8.07% decline in after-hours trading, reaching $38.51, as reported by Benzinga Pro, following the publication of their financial results.