Leading classified ads site Sulit.com.ph has reportedly been sold to a foreign company for an undisclosed sum with negotiations going on as early as first quarter of this year.
I’ve been hearing about several negotiations for months now but held off writing about it until the transaction has been confirmed and completed. Details of the acquisition is yet unknown at the moment and it looks like the foreign owners/investors still want to keep it a secret.
Sulit is one of the most visited websites in the Philippines with an estimated 46.3 million pageviews and 7.3 million visitors a month and over 12 million indexed pages in Google with about 350,000 registered members.
This super-SEO’d classifieds ad site only launched in 2006 and surpassed global giant eBay.ph by October 2007 in terms of traffic.
Google Trends puts Sulit’s daily unique visitors at ~80,000 while Alexa ranks Sulit at #16 in the Philippines (and the only home-grown site in the top 20).
Nix Nolledo (of PEx, Havoc Digital, Starfish Mobile and Xurpass) confirms the purchase on his Twitter account:
Note: Sulit.com.ph is owned and operated by Netrepreneur Connections Enterprise, Inc. Will update this post once I get official word from the founders of Sulit.
Update: RJ of Sulit confirms the acquisition in this forum message:
Late last night, a topic was posted by one of our dear Sulitizens asking if Sulit.com.ph was indeed Sold. Eventually, the news came from a prominent Filipino blogger who got his confirmation from a Twitter account of a Filipino serial tech entrepreneur.
So what is the real deal behind this news?
It is no secret that Sulit.com.ph has a tremendous growth for the past 2 years and most of you know that Arianne (bigbucks) and I (being the founders) are doing our best to give a top notch service that we can offer our members and visitors. But eventually, there will be a limit on what we can physically provide and we believe that our users deserve more.
Therefore, our strong growth has led us to look for outside advice that will help us maximize our performance in critical business areas. We are also considering the strategic options that would allow us (the founders) to take the business to the next level and to maximize the benefits that our users, especially our members, receive. As entrepreneurs, we believe that we have to identify the areas that we are good at and we have to look for people and entities that have the skills and resources to complement ours.
In line with these developments, we will make further announcements if and when we believe it is appropriate to do so. But one thing for sure, we will still be the captains that will lead Sulit.com.ph, together with our users, to new heights for the foreseeable future. We have a lot of exciting plans for Sulit.com.ph and we will see to it that we are there when these plans are implemented. In short, we are here for the long haul.
Sulit has the worst layout for me. I never find anything useful there.
This is definitely big news. I wonder how the TPC fanboys would react to this.
Twitter: kzapkzap
says:
Thats not an announcement, thats just a non denial
People want #s and more information, would be cool if you were able to sell out, what you do want is less work and more time on your hands 
Or will you tell all that SEMCON?
may sulit pa ba akala ko nag-sara na yan? di ba na-hack datiin yan? wala namang bbumibili dyan eh
ahh.. hindi pa pala binili…
@brianb
you wouldnt call it lucky if its been standing for more than 3 years at the top. i’d call that hard work.
not super SEO’d? what is it then that makes sulit to every top of the google even yahoo search results? maybe three years of coincidence? maybe you’d care to enlighten us. if you had a chance at using the site you’d understand why its such a success. they are using every available tool online for marketing.
i would agree though that SEO itself do not make the site. theres the viral marketing campaign, etc. and the most powerful thing of all, the community who loves Sulit.
i think the sulit community played a big part on the site’s development. if it weren’t for them, who’d post ads and forum topics that would later be indexed by google and other search engines?
@XXX
From where did you get your kanto word ” Wala naman bumibili dyan eh”. LOL
Maybe its you who don’t have the money to buy anything from any advertisement in sulit or sa lahat ng buy and sell online.
Inggit lang yan ‘tol. Ipaligo mo lang yan at tiyak mawawala yan.
Kung magkano man nabenta yun, tiyak na naka-sulit naman yung bumili. :p
Naku kakagulat ang news na to, first heard from Selaplana, then I jump in here sabi kasi eh eto thaw yung source of the big news.
Well looking at sulit, yeah may be all of you thinked that sulit is one of the super SEO’d Filipino website from the past years, but I am just amused that I just noticed one of their competitors the olx free classifieds targeting the Philippine market has some features like sulit automatik keywords, I mean the /q/ on sulit search queries which usually indexed by google and yahoo.
The success of sulit being the big time player in the Philippine free classifieds online, inspires other webmasters to make his own free classifieds website!
Btw, i’m trying to make my own free classifieds website, yes with my small knowledge in coding.. I might finnish my project in the near future.
Baka magulat tayo na sir Yuga will make his own free classifieds site! hehehehe
kinareer ba ang pag-comment. ang haba..
Guys guys.. The matter is and was never on our hands. Super seo’d or not, good layout or bad, mabenta or hindi.. or whatever opinion it is.. the owners must be laughing at all the “know-it-all” opinions here. Fact of the matter is, the stock holders and owners will be raking in millions and millions and whatever our opinions are, it wont matter. Sulit deserves Respect. Just deal with it in silence. Im just pissed off with some foolish comments w/c shows a dash of ignorance and 1 teaspoon of bitterness (or maybe jealousy? Millions. Millions.) deal with it. Congrats Nix.
next in line would be yugatech.com , congrats to sulit
wow! its every webmasters dream…or ako lang hehehe galing sobra!!!
LOL! Ebay.com is a global giant.
Ebay.ph ISN’T. It’s a rather crappy site with limited traffic if you ask me.
hmmmm, probably 5-15m?? judging from it’s traffic hindi bababa ng 5m ung site…
Twitter: pioutsource
says:
Great for them!
PS: Alexa is garbage, unless you are in the Top 50.
Hmmm my guess is around Php30-40m..remembered way back then when some foreign investor offered $300k to buy my site lol.
I’ve got mixed reactions for this acquisition.
Well, good luck to sulit.
-Alex
mp3-codes.com
Oo nga no kuya Alex.. I heard your story from Macuha’s blog post long time ago..
You own nga pala yung sikat na mp3-codes at saka sayu ba yung ourmanga? mukhang mahal ata maibenta yun kapag gusgustuhin mo..
wishing goodluck and congratulations to sulit admins and the community.. they deserve much, for a job well done,.
Hhhmmm??? This might be the reason that I don’t receive monthly updates anymore from sulit that would earn me SC currency to keep my account premium. It’s been two months now. I am happy for the Sulit founders but I hope they will maintain their good service. Monthly updates is worth 300 to 500 SC, it’s a big loss for all us, Sulitizens.
This is surprising! Established site na ang Sulit and if I were the owner of this site, I will not sell this unless the price starts at Php100M. LOL
I guess they are doing this in the right timing. I’m closely watching the competition building up in the online classifieds arena and the way another local online classifieds is gaining ground, its not far fetched that it will come neck and neck with sulit.
The way the other site is marketing, its way well funded. And sulit without a big brother to back its operation may well be running out of “tricks” to out-do its fast rising competitor which I believe is doing a way better and clean SEO.
ayan certified sukitizen ako, nakakaingit naman ang galing namna, sana di lang hundreds million ang bintahan kase sulit naman ang bumili, imagin kalat ang pinoy abroad ang laki ng potential para mag compete sa ebay worldwide nito.
Twitter: millionaireacts
says:
I’m late with the news. But definitely, the price too is big. I think it’s around 10M to 15M.
[...] Sulit.com.ph [...]
Sulit is one of the most successful site in the Philippines and it deserves it. The layout is not really good but the functions are and it’s free ads that’s makes it succeed.