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26 February 2021 PRELIMINARY ANNOUNCEMENT FOR RIGHTMOVE PLC YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2020 Financial Highlights Revenue Operating profit Basic earnings per share Final dividend ● ● 2020 ● £ 205.7m £ 135.1m 12.6p 4.5p ● 2019 £ 289.3m £ 213.7m Revenue down 29 % , reflecting the impact of the discount ( ¹ ) support offered to our customers for the period April to September 2020 • Operating profit of £ 135.1m , down 37 % , with operating margin of 66 % ( 2019 : 74 % ) Basic earnings per share 12.6p , down 36 % Final dividend of 4.5p ( 2019 : cancelled ( 2 ) ) per ordinary share ; total dividend for 2020 : 4.5p ( 2019 : 2.8p ( 2 ) ) 19.6p 0.0p Change £ 30.1m ( 2019 : £ 148.8m ) of cash returned to shareholders through share buybacks in 2020 , with the share buyback programme resuming in March 2021 Cash at the end of the period of £ 96.7m ( 31 December 2019 : £ 36.3m ) Operational Highlights • Average Revenue Per Advertiser ( ARPA ) ( ³ ) down 28 % to £ 778 per month ( 2019 : £ 1,088 ) , with December 2020 ARPA of £ 1,103 ( Dec 19 : £ 1,083 ) ( 29 ) % ( 37 ) % ( 36 ) % Membership numbers down 3 % to end the year at 19,197 ( 31 December 2019 : 19,809 ) with 425 fewer Agency Branches and 187 fewer New Homes developments Over one million UK residential properties advertised on Rightmove ( 2019 : 0.9m ) , more than anywhere else in the UK Continued growth in traffic of 31 % , with time on site over the year at 15.9 billion minutes ( 2019 : 12.1 billion ) ( 4 ) and site visits of 2.1 billion ( 2019 : 1.6 billion ) ( 4 ) • Strong adoption of our premium Optimiser 2020 package , with 9 % of agents subscribing to the package , up from 1 % in December 2019 First phase of digital rental journey complete , with video viewings , Rightmove Tenant Passport , viewing appointment booking and reminders and one - click reference ordering in place . Phase two development is in progress Rightmove remains an accredited carbon neutral organisation and living wage employer ( 1 ) We provided a 75 % discount on invoice values to both Agency and new Home customers between April and July , and a further discount to Agency customers in August and September ( 60 % and 40 % respectively ) . ( 2 ) The Board declared a final dividend of 4.4p per share for 2019 , which was subsequently cancelled . The total dividend for 2019 was 2.8p paid in November 2019 ; no dividend payments were made in 2020 . ( 3 ) Revenue from Agency and New Homes advertisers in a given month divided by the total number of advertisers during the month , measured as a monthly average over the year . ( 4 ) Source : Google Analytics .