REA Group Ltd

ASX:REA

Earnings Call Transcript 2022-Q3

[Operator]

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the REA Group Q3 Financial Results. [Operator Instructions]

I'd now like to hand the conference over to Ms. Alice Bennett, Executive Manager of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

[Alice Bennett, executive]

Good morning, and welcome everyone. My name is Alice Bennett, Executive Manager OF Investor Relations, and I'd like to thank you for joining us to discuss REA Group's results for the third quarter ended 31st of March 2022.

Before we commence, I'd like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land, which we are hosting our meeting in Melbourne, the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation, and pay our respects to their Elders past and present.

This morning, you'll firstly hear from our CEO, Owen Wilson, who will provide a brief business update; and then Janelle Hopkins, REA's CFO, will talk to the financial highlights for the quarter. And following this, we'll be happy to take your questions. And just as a reminder, quarterly numbers are top-line results only. They will be restricted in the amount of detail we can provide today.

With that, I will pass it over to Owen to get us started.

[Owen Wilson, executive]

Thanks, Alice. I'd like to welcome everyone this morning and also acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we're meeting, and pay my respects to their Elders past and present. REA has delivered a strong performance for the quarter ended 31 March. This very pleasing result was driven largely by Australian residential business reflecting strong national listings environment, and the record uptake of our premium products. We also delivered excellent growth in our strategically important financial services, data, and Indian businesses.

Looking at results from corporations for the quarter, revenue was $278 million an increase of 23%, EBITDA including share of profits from associate was $155 million an increase of 27%. The property market in Australia is very healthy with positive underlying conditions supporting strong levels of activity. National listings increased 11% year-on-year with Sydney up 14% and Melbourne up 8%. Combined with our strong financial result, REA continue to build momentum behind our key strategic priorities. We're extending our core business and creating the next generation of property-related marketplaces.

Our objectives are clear. To continue to deliver Australia's largest most engaged consumer audience, driving more leads to our customers, providing our customers with superior value across property advertising, at agent marketplace and agency services. To become Australia's leading property data, valuations, and insights provider. To make it easier to find and finance property by building the number one retail broker business in Australia, an online mortgage marketplace. And to continue our growth trajectory in India, Asia, and the USA. The millions of Australians who engage with realestate.com.au each month are key to our success and we've continued to extend our leadership position as Australia's number one property address.

12.7 million people visited realestate.com.au each month on average during the quarter, approximately 63% of Australia's adult population. We achieved 3.4 times more visits on average than our nearest competitor with this gap widening during the quarter. Demonstrating our leadership in March, realestate.com.au recorded the sixth-largest audience among digital brands in Australia. Looking at consumer highlights for the quarter, our goal is to convert our audience of engaged property seekers interactive members. We made significant progress during the quarter with greater uptake of our property tracking and valuation tools.

Our rich data enables highly personalized member experiences and we know members are 3 times more likely to complete a high-value action, in turn delivering more qualified leads for our customers. We had a 26% increase in active members during the quarter and pleasingly active property owner tracks were up 50% year on year. The new personalized realestate.com.au home experience contributed to a year-on-year increase of 105% in new member signups. Over 1 million consumers are now engaging with only experiences each month and seller leads were up 49% year on year.

In January, we relaunched our tenant verification offerings and across February and March, we saw a 79% year-on-year increase in the number of renters purchasing our tenant verification service. This not only helps tenants quickly secure rental properties, it also helps to automate property manager workflows improving customer efficiency. Moving to customers, the third quarter saw continued growth in guests penetration, demonstrating our superior value offering. In February, we launched several enhancements to our Connect offering, which helps customers streamline their workloads.

The package now provides customers with unmatched rental market data and access to campaign agents' pay-now solution. Connect usage increased 18% on the prior quarter. In March, we introduced the new advertising bundle, Premier Plus, providing customers with the most comprehensive digital property advertising solution in the market. Premier Plus has all the features of our premier product but also enables customers to build demand earlier in the listing process, better amplify listings, and then share their success. Customer feedback has been very positive. Also in March, our REA project team launched the new look, property.com.au.

Property.com.au is set to become Australia's leading property research destination, and our objective is to provide a full picture of every property in Australia. Consumers can already search more than 15 million residential addresses across the country. The site is designed to compare buyers and sellers with detailed research, while delivering opportunities for customers to further build their brand and connect with consumers. We're confident, property.com.au is well-positioned to deliver more leads and value to our customers over time, and is complimentary to the value realestate.com.au provides.

I look forward to sharing more detail at our Investor Day next month. On the data front, our property data business, PropTrack, delivered strong year-on-year revenue growth to the quarter through continued success with our financial services customers. Last month, we were pleased to launch the PropTrack home price index, Australia's first monthly revised index, which will deliver insights on home prices and market trends, helping Australians make better-informed property decisions. Our financial services business has continued its strong performance this quarter. The rebrand of Smartline Brokers to Mortgage Choice has commenced, and we're on track for the integration of Smartline and Mortgage Choice to be fully complete by Q3 FY23.

Moving to our international business. REA India has great momentum following a strong recovery from the impact to the pandemic. During the quarter, we achieved strong revenue growth and our flagship Indian site, housing.com has now been the number one site in terms of audience for 6 consecutive months. The site achieved a 31% year-on-year increase in visits for the quarter and a record in March of 16.5 million visits. We have a clear strategy and momentum in India and we'll continue to invest to capitalize on our strong position.

We're also pleased to see PropertyGuru passed a significant milestone to begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange in March, following which REA has a 17.5% interest. The full-year results for calendar year 2021, so revenue growth of 22.7%, and the group is reaffirm projected revenue growth in excess of 40% by 2022.

Before I move on to current market conditions, I'd like to highlight 2 significant sustainability milestones achieved during the quarter. REA's ESG rating by Morgan Stanley Capital International was elevated to AA in March. Our rating has consistently improved over the last 5 years and we're now rated as an ESG leader in the interactive media and services industry. We're also pleased to launch our first diversity and inclusion index, and receive recognition as an inclusive employer by the Diversity Council of Australia.

Before I hand over to you now, I'll make a few comments regarding current market conditions. As I previously indicated, the fundamentals of the Australian property market remain positive. We're seeing a better balance between supply and demand in the market and a continued strong mortgage lending appetite from banks.

House prices are moderating in some areas, but frankly, this probably needed to happen to maintain a healthy market. Further interest rate rises are expected by everyone. How many and how high? I'll leave others to predict, but it's clear, this inevitability is already being factored in by consumers are transacting in the market at this point in time. We expect that strong bank liquidity, record low unemployment, and increased immigration should underpin the Australian property market. The momentum behind our strategic priorities is exciting. Our focus on innovation and investments enables delivery of greater value to our customers and supports the evolution of our next-generation marketplaces.

The benefits of this focus are clearly evident in the result we've announced today. Along with our leadership team, I'm looking forward to sharing more detail about our growth initiatives and our Investor Day next month.

I'll now pass over to Janelle to provide more detail on our financial results.

[Janelle Hopkins, executive]

Thanks, Owen, and good morning, everyone. REA has delivered a strong results for the quarter, driven by growth in our Australian residential business and the inclusion of Mortgage Choice. As we typically do, we provide a group results in the tables in the ASX release for the third quarter and financial year to date. We've also provided growth rates excluding REA India and Mortgage Choice acquisitions to give a like-for-like comparison. Revenues for the quarter increased 23% to $278 million. Operating expenses from core operations increased 17% to $122 million. And the group delivered EBITDA including results from our associates of $155 billion up 27%.

Excluding acquisitions, revenue increased by 17% and EBITDA, including associates increased by 23%. After a strong start, which saw January listing up 14% on the prior year, the Australian residential property market maintained momentum throughout the quarter, despite beginning to cycle more challenging year-on-year comparisons. National listings into Q3 up 11%, with Sydney up 14%, and Melbourne up 8%.

Australian residential revenue increase for the quarter, benefiting from buyer listings growth, the contracted price rise from 1 July, increased depths and Premier penetration and continued growth in add-on products. Rents, however, remains weak with the benefits of a price rise and increased depth penetration more than offset by declining listing due largely to a lack of supply. Turning to commercial and developer.

Revenues were largely in line with the prior year with growth in commercials opted by lower developer revenues. Commercial revenue growth is pleasing continuing to benefit from price rise and increase in-depth listings. Developer, however, saw a continuation of recent trends with project commencement down 15% in the quarter. This was impacted by rising construction costs and supply chain-related project delays and the strong prior-year commencements which benefited from government stimulus.

Media, data, and other revenues were up during the quarter with strong momentum continuing for PropTrack and more modest growth in media and other revenue. Following similar trends seen in the residential business, financial services delivered strong growth in operating revenues and we saw continued growth and settlements and broker recruitments. REA India, as I mentioned, has continued during the quarter with the strong growth in both audience and revenue. Revenue growth has been driven by housing.com's property advertising business, and from growth in adjacency products on the housing edge platform, such as Rent Pay.

Core operating costs, excluding acquisitions, increased by 6% for the quarter. This reflects a high headcount to support growth initiatives, increased investment in marketing, and higher revenue-related costs. This investment is expected to continue in the fourth quarter. The group's combined share of associates contributed $0.5 million loss to core EBITDA which was down from a $1.4 million gain in the prior period. This primarily reflects equity accounts and losses from PropertyGuru, which were not in the prior period. As Owen mentioned earlier, PropertyGuru successfully listed on the New York Stock Exchange on the 18th of March.

REA contributed US $52 million to the flat capital raising and following the listing and capital contribution, REA Group's equity stake in [indiscernible] was 17.5%. Move saw revenue growth up 5% during the quarter, their referral model benefitted from higher average home values, and their traditional lead generation business increased yields despite lower inventory, reducing the volumes. Moves operating costs increased as the business continued to strategically invest in take outs and marketing. Moving the current trading conditions. As expected, April's national residential listing began 8% year-on-year, with Sydney listings declining 19% and Melbourne 18%, impacted by the timing of the Easter and [indiscernible] holiday period. National listings are likely to be down year on year in the fourth quarter, reflecting the softer April but also very strong higher period listings and the potential negative impact around the federal election on the 21st of May. Following the residential listings trend, we expect financial services settlements growth to slow in the fourth quarter as we cycle an exceptionally strong prior year.

There is also a potential for the current industry trend of increased mortgage runoff rate to negatively impact the valuation of future trial commissions at year-end. If this was to occur, cash operating revenues would not be impacted. However, reported revenues could be reduced. Developer project commencements are also expected to be down year-on-year in Q4, reflecting a very strong prior year volumes, which were assisted by the home builders government stimulus extension. The continued impact of supply chain delays and rising construction costs are also causing delays to some projects.

We expect these 2-4-volume headwinds will be more than offset by higher residential and commercial yields supported by the contractor price rises and increase depth penetration. The benefit of strong March volumes deferred into Q4 and growth and data an REA India revenues. Lastly, the group continues to tie that full-year positive operating jaws excluding the impact of REA India and Mortgage Choice acquisitions with low double-digit operating cost growth expected. I'll pause there.

Operator, we're now open for questions.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Eric Choi from Barrenjoey.

[Eric Choi, analyst]

Welcome back, Janelle, as well.

[Janelle Hopkins, executive]

Thank you.

[Eric Choi, analyst]

Good to have you back. First question, just on, I guess, how I always do this. I just look at the residential revenue growth in Q3 versus Q2, and I guess there's slowdowns more than what the lower listings volume growth would suggest. So that kind of suggests there's another factor at play. So just wondering if you guys saw there was a slower depth growth this quarter or these March deferrals material. Second question just on Premier Plus. I guess you've called out 6% yield increases between 3 previously. Just wondering how that yield outlook into FY23, the effective look increase changes with Premier Plus.

And then third question. Owen called out rising interest rates. Just wondering if you think there's any learnings that we can take from New Zealand or even historic Australian [indiscernible] crew to gauge what might happen to listings here.

[Janelle Hopkins, executive]

Thanks, Eric. I'll take number one, and Owen will take 2 and 3. Overall, we were really pleased with the residential performance for the quarter. We did clearly see that listings growth. We did see penetration growth a little bit less than Q2, but still very strong. The big impact I think is more into deferrals, but from March deferring into Q4 so that's probably the biggest impact.

[Owen Wilson, executive]

And I'll take the other 2 questions. Look, on Premier Plus, that will have a positive impact on yield for any customers who take that product up. It is a more expensive product and it's an extra $150 per listing in the city and $100 regionally. And so depending on where the customer is based, that yield up will obviously be variable depending on their current prices are. In terms of interest rates and the comparison in New Zealand, I'm not sure that comparison holds. If you look at average leverage rates for borrowers in New Zealand, it is higher than in Australia.

My view is that we are coming off immediately low-interest rate levels, and even with the rate rises predicted, it only gets us back to where we were pre-pandemic. And for the last few years of the pandemic, when these rates have been in the market, all the banks have been using 5% as the serviceability interest rates for mortgages. So I'm not sure New Zealand is a good comparison what's going to happen here. I think the fact that consumers are still in the market buying property, absolutely, knowing these rate rises are coming, I think underpins what's happening.

And we're still got record low unemployment, so I don't think we'll follow the New Zealand model.

[Eric Choi, analyst]

Interestingly, Owen, new listings have actually held up quite well in New Zealand despite that, so you're painting maybe a more in-line or positive picture in Australia.

[Owen Wilson, executive]

Yes, but I'm not sure transaction volume is the sign. So you to need to look at new listings versus title listings. I think listings are on market for longer at the moment in New Zealand. So I agree with you, Eric, that with these rate rises already factored into the market, anyone joins at the moment, selling or buying, is factoring that in, and yet we're seeing still huge interest from buyer demand on the site, we're seeing healthy levels of listings, in fact, probably more positive than we had expected for April.

And as we go into May, I'm sure this question will come up, we're not seeing that level of negativity from the election campaign that we're seeing in prior elections. We may see an impact if there's not a clear result in the election, we saw that in 2 elections ago when we kind of were looking at a hung parliament for a while, but I think overall the market is in really good shape.

[Eric Choi, analyst]

And Janelle, can you quantify that deferral negative impact in 3 to positive impact in Q4?

[Janelle Hopkins, executive]

No, I can't. Just given that level of disclosure for the quarter.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from Darren Leung from Macquarie.

[Darren Leung, analyst]

To ask a question just on the media business. Obviously, developer volumes are coming up. Let's say you've had a good result this quarter, is it fair to assume that we'll start to see a bit of moderation over the next 6 to 12 months?

[Janelle Hopkins, executive]

Specifically on media or?

[Darren Leung, analyst]

As in media, the display business.

[Janelle Hopkins, executive]

Yes. Look, we had some overall, and media, we're really pleased with our media business. We have seen increased growth in programmatic. The impact on developer has been largely due to the challenge around project commencements for this year, in particular. However, we have been pleased with our display for our developer business. How that will trend next year will depend on how the project commencements go into '23, which we're hoping to see improve, as we're seeing immigration come back as well as hopefully, supply chain delay starting to moderate.

[Owen Wilson, executive]

Yes. And I think both sides have been a bit of stimulus, which I think will be more directed towards new builds. And given the levels of stimulus they got, so you might see some positive effects from there into next year, regardless of who wins.

[Darren Leung, analyst]

Understand. And then this is final question for me on the listing space. So we obviously up 11 for the quarter, and they're calling out negative in fourth quarter. Is it still possible for us to sort of expect positive listings growth in the second half?

[Owen Wilson, executive]

Yes, that's pretty -- I will expect that.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from Kane Hannan from Goldman Sachs.

[Kane Hannan, analyst]

It's just 3 for me as well. Firstly, rent, and I know you guys don't break it out, but probably just any color you can give us around the drag that was in the quarter, whether we've seen any signs of improvement coming through there. It sort of seems to be relatively weak print. Secondly, India, Owen, I read an interview that you gave, you were suggesting that business will be 5% to 10% accrued revenues this year. So just interested to any more color you can give around those estimates.

If it's right to think about India doing north of $6 million of revenue this year. And then finally, just Audience Max, if there's any color you can give around the growth rates of that product in the quarters or whether it maintain the numbers in the first half. Cheers.

[Janelle Hopkins, executive]

Thanks, Kane. On rent, clearly, the challenge around rent is the fact that we are seeing low inventory on sites. Some of the investors have been leaving the market from a retrospective so it's just low levels of stock. So overall listings for the quarter for rent went down 12%. We have been able to moderate some of that impact of listings down on revenue with depth penetration and price, but rent continues to be weak. We are anticipating it, it will improve in the fourth quarter but it will depend on those inventory levels coming back.

[Owen Wilson, executive]

In India, they've got very strong growth rates. And so you don't, it's basic maps. If they keep growing the rates that they've been growing, they are going to become a more substantial part of our revenue. We haven't disclosed the numbers for the quarter, but I'm looking forward to disclosing the numbers at the 4 year. We are really seeing the dividends of the investment. We made both in marketing, in product, and in talent. I was over there last week doing that interview and meeting with the team and they've got real moment in that business.

[Janelle Hopkins, executive]

Audience maximizer continues to be a really strong product for us. We've continued to see similar growth rates to what we saw in Q1 and Q2. Really pleased with how that product's been delivering.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from Tom Beadle from UBS.

[Thomas Beadle, analyst]

I've just got 2, if that's okay, please. Actually just the first one, probably a fairly straightforward one just around price increases. Obviously, you've contracted up to 6% with the agents. Have you actually started putting through or sort of putting through view contracts with the agents there? Can you announce what that increase was? Secondly, just around REA Connect, yes, with the trial period over now for some customers.

I'd be interested to hear what the conversion is to paying customers and also just to what extent it might have contributed to revenue in the quarter as well.

[Owen Wilson, executive]

Tom, on the new contract, the 6% price increase on Premier customers, that's contracted so that they signed a 2-year contract last year. There's no recontracting there. We will see benefit above that 6% from Premium Plus. It's early days at the moment, the uptake, we'll follow the typical uptake we do for new products. You usually get the first adopters and then you get others who see the benefits in the market, particularly the competitors, and then they come on board. But any customer who signs a Premier Plus contract will have a much higher yield increase than 6%.

In terms of Connect, now that the free trial period is off, we did see a lot of customers come off and some customers signed up for the free trial and didn't actually trial it because it is a big change. You're changing your operating system. They were interested, they had but they didn't commit. But what we are really pleased with is the ones who have adopted it as their operating system. They like it, it's more efficient. The feedback is incredibly positive and we are really confident with the growth trajectory. It's not a meaningful contributor to our revenue line at the moment, but we are very confident over the long term. This will be a sticky product. It's a per seat product, so it will fluctuate with our customers' growth. We like it, but we won't see a big movement in our P&L from this year.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from Entcho Raykovski from Credit Suisse.

[Entcho Raykovski, analyst]

My first question is on listings and I'm interested in your perspective on where FY22 is likely to cease in the listing cycle. I mean, obviously, we've had pretty strong growth in the first 3 quarters in guiding to that decline in the fourth quarter. But where do you think that places us? Could we see upside from here? Are we likely to kind of go down in '23? And just more broadly, do we need an event like say stamp duty changes to drive? Any upside in listings from this line?

[Owen Wilson, executive]

If you look at our projection on total listings for FY22, it's right in line basically with FY18, which was kind of-- I call it the last normal year we had. You remember we had the wonderful days of the Royal Commission and the banks turning off lending and then followed by kind of 2 years of pandemic impact. So '22 is really in line with a more normalized market with more normalized interest rates back in FY18. And so looking forward, I don't see that there are any reasons why we're not going to sort of maintain these levels going into FY23.

They could be slightly up, they could be slightly down. My personal view, I think they'll probably be slightly down, but only marginally and that just reflects a different interest rate environment next year to this one. But I think the fundamentals of the economy are not going away. And consumers have still got stacks of cash in their deposit accounts. And so it's a healthy market so the actual listing is very hard as crystal ball. My bet is marginally down next year, but only marginally.

[Entcho Raykovski, analyst]

You're probably more informed than a lot of us. So no, that's useful. And secondly, the launch of property.com.au. Can you talk about how you think about monetization? Is it through Premiere Plus given that you're offering as part of Premiere Plus some listings on property.com.au or are you thinking about other means to monetize that site?

[Owen Wilson, executive]

I think over the long-term, there'll definitely be other means. We will give you a lot more detail on this at our Investor Day. So I won't unwrap the Christmas present yet, but this is a long-term play. We do know that consumers want to research before they buy and sell. And if we can enable that research to happen more easily. We think there'll be more activity in the market as a result of that. We know the consumers will come to our site and have a look at it but they then will also look to other sites and we want this to be effectively the Google for property. Everything you need to know about a property, whether be planning permits, school zones, energy ratings, everything you need, we want it in one site.

That's our vision for property.com.au. And then we know if consumers are coming and we can tell whether they're buying or selling. There will be an opportunity to connect them with our customers and for our customers to build their brand as part of that research process. So you don't need much imagination to see the ways we might monetize that down the track but we've got to build the site. We've got to get the audience to come and so it's very early days, but we'll give you more detail at the Investor Day.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from Roger Samuel from Jefferies.

[Roger Samuel, analyst]

I've got 3 questions. First one, just on Premier Plus. Can you remind us about the product's construct and is this something that the agents would obtain or is it something that the vendor would pay on a per-listing basis, as you mentioned before?

[Owen Wilson, executive]

So it is on a per-listing basis. It is a contract, so the customers once they sign up, they sign up. A bit like a Premiere All but it's almost like a Premiere Plus All. And what you get is you get effectively earlier visibility of the listing like a coming-soon type feature. You get a greater magnification of the actual Premiere listing. And then the other part that our customers are really excited about, it's effectively a [indiscernible].

A lot of customers want to promote the sales that they've achieved in the market, and this is a great way for them to do that. So they really like that feature in the product as well.

[Roger Samuel, analyst]

Okay. And my second question is about your outlook for the fourth quarter. They're expecting some headwinds to volume and I'm just wondering how we should be thinking about your depth penetration increase. Are you confident that depth will increase because you have contracted more agents on the Premiere All contracts last year. So even with the volume headwind, they would have to advertise more properties on Premiere.

[Owen Wilson, executive]

Now you're spot-on. Look, the level of depth penetration is effectively contracted and so if the listings are up or down, the penetration rates effectively remain the same. We do obviously get some discretion in purchase of Premier products, people who aren't on Premier All. You can still buy the product. It's just more expensive. And as that supply-demand equation comes more back into balance, I think you'll see a higher propensity to advertise. You'll see less off-market as that starts to happen and when we benefit from both of those circumstances. So any softening demand or a better balanced supply-demand equation is good for us.

[Roger Samuel, analyst]

Right. Okay. Just lastly on your cost, if we are seeing a downturn in the fourth quarter or even in FY23, how quickly can you reduce a cost base?

[Janelle Hopkins, executive]

I think we've shown over the past 2 or 3 years, we can adjust our cost base. We need to--but the cost base is very flexible. It's a lot of the salaries, we also have an offshore service provider that provides consulting as well. We can adjust that if we need it very quickly. That being said, we absolutely want to continue to invest for long term growth.

[Roger Samuel, analyst]

Yes. Okay.

[Owen Wilson, executive]

Janelle said we have a large cohort of developers offshore that we can dial up and down as we see with very short notice.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from Paul Mason from E&P.

[Paul Mason, analyst]

I just was wondering if you could tell us a bit about how Audience Maximiser interacts with Premier Plus and Premier because my understanding was previously you'd have Premier and then audience maximizes so effectively an overlay on it to get the social media presence as well. Is that now going to be linked to Premier Plus? Or is there going to be a customer option or how's that going to work?

[Owen Wilson, executive]

You're right. They're very separate products. Premier is a listing product on the glass and Audience Maximiser is a social media product for the listing and that's done exceptionally well. We have bundled the 2 in the past often if you take old max all and Premier All together, we'll give you a better offering on that and that's seen a huge growth in our Audience Maximiser volumes. Does that answer your question?

[Paul Mason, analyst]

The point is the Premier All contracts completely distinct an Audience Maximiser or all contracts. You can do Audience Maximiser or at different hues.

[Owen Wilson, executive]

It is, it is. Correct.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from Siraj Ahmed from Citi.

[Siraj Ahmed, analyst]

Just have 3 questions. The first one as you mentioned the FY22 depth is enlargely contracted. You have some discretionary uptake. So just heading into FY23 just on the discretionary element given the 50-year contract, how do we think about depth penetration increase in the FY23 contract? Secondly, maybe for general, just on margins, group-level 55.8% in the third quarter. And then you've given OPEX guidance extra acquisitions. Do we think 55.8% could hold or can it go down a bit more because of India and market choice?

And lastly, in terms of cost route for the core business, I'm getting already budgeted for this into FY23. Are you expecting cost to rise next year?

[Owen Wilson, executive]

In terms of the contract depth penetration question, in terms of debt penetration going into FY23, we will see that improve. Whilst there are a lot of customers on a 2-year contract for premier role. We're always out encouraging other customers to take it up and there's nothing to prevent them from doing that. We've also then got Premier Plus contracting market now. And so we are seeing not any Premier All customers upgrade to Premier Plus but we're seeing some of the feature and highlight all customers just jump right up to the top because the product is so compelling. And so you are going to see continued improvement in-depth penetration into our FY23.

[Janelle Hopkins, executive]

And in relation to quarterly margins, I think our costs will move around quarter on quarter depending on a pace of investment and lumpy things such as marketing. So we have provided guidance and reiterated our guidance for the 4-year cost growth to be in the low double digits. In relation to cost growth next year, as we look forward now, we do think about cost growth for our 2 main market separately. Australia business are our India business. For Australia business, we're not immune to the impacts of inflation and we know that the inflation data came out recently a bit over 5% that will impact our cost price going forward.

And in addition to that we know that the tech sector has a high level of pressure on tech salaries. And we are continuing to invest in strategic initiatives. Now that being said, as we think forward into FY23, we are continuing to target positive operating jaws for Australia, although they probably will be narrower than they have been in the past. And when we think about India, that we absolutely want to continue to capitalize on the momentum that we have to deliver on our objective to be the number one in that market.

And we do expect to increase the level of investment in line with the level of increase we're seeing this year, which will be partly upset by continued revenue growth. And as I mentioned earlier, we always manage our costs very closely and we have the ability to tweak up or down depending on market conditions.

[Siraj Ahmed, analyst]

Actually, just one more question, Owen. You mentioned in this more balanced market you see. Off-market sort of coming into the listings environment. Are you starting to see that or is that something you expect going forward?

[Owen Wilson, executive]

It's really hard to track. I give a lot of money to be able to track off-market transactions but claims from customers versus the reality is usually pretty different. But the conditions are, the softer demand means the more likely you are to advertise your company and the more you're likely to spend on advertising. And so I can't quantify it but we know those conditions absolutely there, they are in a really hot market, where there's more buyers and sellers. You can get away with advertising. That's been around for decades. So as I said, the softer market is probably slightly better for us.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from Andrew James Martin from [indiscernible] Investment Partners.

[Unknown Analyst]

I was wondering whether it's possible to get a bit of color on how Move is tracking now that the mortgage rates in the states have moved sharply higher.

[Owen Wilson, executive]

Sure. So if you listen to the News Corp call this morning, Move had 5% revenue growth in the quarter. That was a quarter-on-quarter. It was in line with their previous quarter. The impact of interest rate rises in the US is absolutely dampening the market as you'd expect it to. And so they are seeing volumes come off, and that was as articulated on the News Corp call this morning.

[Operator]

There are no further questions at this time. I will then hand back to Mr. Wilson for closing remarks.

[Owen Wilson, executive]

Great. Thank you. And thanks, again, everyone for joining us this morning. We really look forward to seeing you at our Investor Day in June, and give you an update on the progress, again, when we put up [indiscernible] results out in August. Thanks, everyone.

[Operator]

That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.