the indo battleground is heating up

Just came across this: http://www.techinasia.com/real-estate-classifieds-lamudi-indonesia/

It amazes me that another company is creating an online property classifieds website in Indonesia starting from scratch when rumah123.com (iProperty) and rumah.com (PropertyGuru), among others, are so far advanced. Shows confidence - whether they have the relationships to grow fast and catch up is yet to be seen, but I cannot see how they could possibly compete with the established websites.

Rumah.com's listings have just had a sharp run up and they continue to show more visits from month to month compared to rumah123.com. This worries me immensely as I feel PropertyGuru have a better grip on the consumers in that Country and are attracting more attention.

I just hope iProperty do not underestimate the competition in Indonesia and are doing absolutely everything possible to obtain clear leadership in that region, which will be the difference between it becoming a hugely successful company and an average company. Sometimes I worry about upper management being a little too cocky with their pats on the back and claiming clear leadership in Indonesia when in fact it is a very tight race. Sorry, just letting some anxiety out...

On a separate note, why are iProperty still wasting their time and money on Philippines, India and even Singapore when they are clearly not doing enough to compete. Either go hard or just forget them and consolidate. They should cut their losses and focus hard on Malaysia, Indonesia and Hong Kong only.

I'd love to hear people's comments on the above if you have any.

Oh, and any thoughts of a possible merger with PropertyGuru (which is what I was hoping for) no longer seems on the cards with this article just coming out:
http://www.propertyportalwatch.com/2014/03/singapore-portal-propertyguru-mulls-listing-in-australia-or-singapore/

The race is on and geez I hope and pray we win!!