Adevinta boosts Barcelona headquarters and will invest three million annually in its classifieds portals

The company Adevinta Spain, owner of the marketplaces Fotocasa, habitaclia, InfoJobs, coches.net, motos.net and Milanuncios, focuses its growth on the incorporation of new users to these classified portals by accelerating their development. Currently, Adevinta has 18 million users per month on the platforms operating in Spain.

To continue growing, it will invest three million euros annually in innovation and product development and will reinforce the team of 500 developers it has at its 22@ headquarters in Barcelona.

The company's CEO, Román Campa, states that the product development teams in Barcelona ---which, along with Amsterdam, is one of the group's two global headquarters--- share technology with applications for all the marketplaces of the Norwegian group, which operates in 15 countries in Europe, Latin America and North Africa, with an average of 3 billion visits each month. Campa adds that the Norwegian firm also has "teams for the development of more local solutions for each business vertical."

The company plans to hire 70 professionals this year, who will join the 70 additions already made in 2021, to reinforce the staff of 1,100 people in the Catalan capital ---reaching 1,250 in Spain as a whole---. Campa explains that "there is a shortage of talent in Barcelona because there is a lot of demand and competition, as the city is an important hub for entrepreneurship and new technologies" and, therefore, "Adevinta has decided to make a shift in the selection of its new profiles." This implies that "we will continue to hire senior professionals with experience and a track record," but the goal is now "to incorporate more junior profiles to accompany them in their professional career and train them in the necessary skills to contribute to Adevinta's growth."

In this regard, the group also advocates for social action and has joined the professional reorientation program for people in vulnerable situations Bcn Inclusive Coding, conceived by Mobile World Capital Barcelona, through Barcelona Digital Talent.

Adevinta Spain, "with one out of two Spaniards interacting every month on one of our portals", foresees a double-digit annual economic growth in 2022, although "many uncertainties have appeared due to the geopolitical situation," indicates Campa and values the evolution of 2021, a year in which business figures from 2019 have been surpassed. Last year, Adevinta Spain registered a turnover of 188 million euros, with an increase of 14% compared to the previous year and almost 3.5% over 2019. The gross operating profit (Ebitda) stood at 56 million euros, 6% more than in 2020. The overall economic results of the Norwegian group grew by 10%, to 1,521 million euros, with a gross profit of 514 million.

New services

Román Campa emphasizes two aspects regarding the competencies in which Adevinta Spain's teams work to improve the user experience on their classifieds portals and, especially, with the aim of creating greater convenience. On the one hand, the delivery and collection processes of the products they commercialize online, and on the other, the guarantees of both payment and the authenticity of transactions.

Another line of growth for classifieds marketplaces focuses on agreements with service providers that can improve the shopping experience with adjacent services. Thus, Adevinta has closed agreements with companies specialized in financing for the purchase of homes and vehicles or insurers for rentals, among other services.

'Startup' accelerator

On some occasions, these partners are startups with disruptive solutions that, in some cases, have been incorporated into the Adevinta group. "This is the example of the technological startup PixiePixel, a company that develops solutions in the field of big data for the real estate sector created in 2008 and with which Fotocasa had been collaborating for years and which we incorporated into the group in December 2021," specifies Román Campa.

The group has bought PixiePixel, one of its allies in big data

More job offers

In this last market, where it operates in Spain through Infojobs, Román Campa highlights that 2021 has been characterized by a significant increase in job offers from SMEs and that "as selection processes are increasingly complex, we offer, on the one hand, complementary services to companies either directly or through specific partners, and for job seekers, we help them complete their profile with more psychotechnical aspects." "We are focusing on personnel selection tools that match supply and demand to avoid possible biases in the classifications of job candidates," he concludes.

Analysis of online commerce

Adevinta has presented the annual report Digital Pulse. Evolution and trends in consumption habits which determines that, after the digital acceleration experienced in 2020, 85% of consumers make their purchases online and, of these, more than half do so recurrently, at least once a month. These are buyers, 53% of citizens, while 58% of consumers sell online, a percentage that in 2020 was 45%.

Regarding the amount spent on online purchases, most people (52%) dedicate more than 10% of their budget, with young people between 25 and 39 years old being the most digital and those who spend the most, between 50 euros and 250 euros per month.