Zoopla, the UK’s second-largest property website, returned to a pre-tax profit of £13.3m in 2025 despite a 1 per cent fall in revenue to £83.2m, which the company attributed to a change in its advertising strategy.

The Rightmove rival had reported a loss of £5.2m the previous year, when it wrote down the value of Yourkeys, a business it acquired in 2021 that helps developers manage their sales, by £19.5m.

Revenue had slipped by 7 per cent to £84.2m in 2024. Zoopla put the latest decline down to “lower programmatic and direct advertising revenue” as it moved towards promoting “more relevant property-related advertising” on its site.

The company does not disclose how many estate agents pay to list homes on its website but said its customer base “remained broadly stable” last year.

Paul Whitehead, chief executive of Zoopla, said: “Lots of marketplaces put what’s called programmatic advertising across their sites, but it’s generic.

“There’s some short-term revenue there, but is it the best consumer experience? Probably not. We want to work with [advertisers] that are contextual to the house move, whether that’s lenders or estate agents or credit score providers. It’s a tough decision because you lose some revenue as a result.”

Whitehead, 55, took charge as chief executive last year. He previously ran Cazoo, the used-car website that fell into administration in 2024.

Zoopla has been owned since 2018 by Silver Lake Partners, the American private equity firm that also holds a stake in City Football Group, the owner of Manchester City.

Rather than compete directly with the volume of leads Rightmove generates for its estate agent and developer customers, Whitehead wants Zoopla to offer fewer but better leads. Central to that approach is signing up more people to track the value of their current homes on the platform.

At the end of 2025 there were 5.4 million homeowners tracking their home’s value on Zoopla, a third more than a year earlier. The company says the figure has risen to 6.4 million so far in 2026.

“We believe [having a large number of homeowners using our platform] delivers great value to our partners who are getting more instructions,” Whitehead said.

“We can provide data insights even before people are in that actual moving window. You might start looking at particular types of properties or save a property, these are all signals to us that someone might be thinking about moving.”

He added that the new strategy was “starting to deliver in the numbers”. Alongside the return to profitability, Zoopla reported a 9 per cent increase in revenue in the first quarter of 2026.

Zoopla remains well behind Rightmove on earnings. In the first six months of 2026 alone, Rightmove generated a pre-tax profit of £149.1m on revenue of £225.8m, according to its half-year report, which also showed revenue up 7 per cent on the same period a year earlier.

Rightmove, which rejected a £5.6bn takeover approach from Rupert Murdoch’s REA Group in 2024, reported average revenue per advertiser of £1,726 a month in the first half of 2026. Zoopla does not disclose its monthly cost, which is thought to be as little as half of that.

“We’ll only increase prices if we’re delivering value, we won’t just do it for the sake of it,” Whitehead said. “Our competition is still very much focused on volume of leads, we’re more focused on intent and quality.”

Jamie Young

Jamie Young is Senior Reporter at Business Matters, covering SME finance, employment law and Westminster policy since 2016. He has reported on every Budget and Autumn Statement since 2018, helped make sense of the ‘covid era’ and the bounce-back loan scheme from launch through the fraud investigations, and broke the magazine’s coverage of the 2024 late-payment reforms. He joined Business Matters straight from completing his BA in Administration from Exeter University and is NCTJ-qualified. Reach him at jyoung@cbmeg.co.uk

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CAMDEN, NJ. — The Campbell’s Co. is adding electrolytes to its V8 Energy line. The V8 Energy with Electrolytes line is offered in drink mix sticks and ready-to-drink (RTD) canned formats.

The drink mixes are made with magnesium and vitamins A, C, E and B.

The RTD cans are formulated with potassium, electrolytes and B vitamins.

Both formats are available in lemon lime, strawberry passionfruit and white peach flavors, and each flavor contains 80 milligrams of caffeine.

The cans are available online through Amazon and Walmart. The drink mixes will launch online later this year. Both products will roll out in retailers in 2027, according to the company.

The launch follows the limited-time launch of V8’s yuzu lemon Energy with Electrolytes beverage in March.

The company’s toll revenue climbed approximately 25% year-on-year (YoY) to Rs 807 crore in August 2026, compared with Rs 646 crore in the same month last year.

The robust performance was driven by sustained traffic growth across IRB Group’s highway assets, along with the benefit of tariff revisions implemented at the beginning of FY27.

Commenting on the performance, Amitabh Murarka, Deputy CEO, IRB Infrastructure Developers, said the strong toll revenue growth in August reflected sustained traffic growth across the company’s assets.

He added that rising traffic volumes, coupled with the tariff revision implemented at the start of FY27, further supported revenue performance.

Live Events

Murarka also highlighted the positive outlook for the coming months, pointing to robust GDP growth and increased economic activity. With the festive season beginning with the Ganesh Festival, the company expects traffic momentum to remain strong and support further growth in toll revenues.

Key Projects Deliver Strong Growth

Among the major assets, IRB MP Expressway Pvt. Ltd., which operates the Mumbai-Pune Expressway and Old Mumbai-Pune Highway (NH-4), reported toll revenue of Rs 172.1 crore in August 2026, up from Rs 144.7 crore a year ago. Meanwhile, IRB Ahmedabad Vadodara Super Express Tollway Pvt. Ltd., which operates the Ahmedabad-Vadodara Expressway (NE-1) and NH-48, generated toll revenue of Rs 80.3 crore, compared with Rs 69.1 crore in August 2025.IRB Group is one of India’s largest integrated infrastructure platforms focused on roads and highways. The group currently has 28 revenue-generating highway assets with an aggregate value of approximately Rs 94,000 crore across 13 states.

Its assets witness around 1.5 million vehicle crossings every day, with the group accounting for nearly one-tenth of India’s total toll revenue.

The latest toll collection numbers indicate continued strength in traffic volumes and provide a positive operational trigger for IRB Infrastructure Developers, with investors closely watching whether the momentum sustains through the upcoming festive season.

Stock Price and Valuation

IRB Infrastructure Developers shares witnessed strong buying interest, surging as much as 8% intraday before paring some of the gains. The stock was last trading around 4% higher, giving the company a market capitalisation of approximately Rs 24,445 crore.

The stock’s 52-week high stands at Rs 23.95, indicating that the recent rally has brought it closer to its yearly peak.

On the valuation front, IRB Infrastructure Developers trades at a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 24.14, while its price-to-book (P/B) ratio stands at 0.55.

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of Economic Times)

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About 1.5 million UK households use heating oil, typically in rural areas. This includes more than 40% of homes in some parts of Lincolnshire, including Wainfleet All Saints, Wragby, Roughton and Ludford, according to Census data.

Unlike gas and electricity customers, they are not covered by the energy price cap, leaving them more exposed to sudden increases. They also have to pay a lump sum in advance for their fuel, with domestic tanks typically holding between 1,000 and 2,000 litres.

On Wednesday, the average price was 97.05p per litre, according to the comparison website boilerjuice.com, external, which measures the cost for purchases of 1,000 litres.

That figure is up by 85% since 9 September 2025, when it stood at 52.8p, and while it has dropped significantly from a high of 134p in March, prices have been climbing again in recent weeks after renewed fighting between the US and Iran.

It means a household wanting to fill a 1,000-litre tank could be facing a bill of more than £970.

In March, the government announced a support package worth £53m, external for low-income families who use heating oil after prices surged due to the conflict in the Middle East.

The funding is distributed by local authorities, which set their own criteria for eligibility.

John Craggs says he inquired about help, but found he did not qualify.

The question of which smartphone Elon Musk actually carries has become a recurring subject of online speculation, and the honest answer, based on available public sightings and reporting, is that there is no single confirmed device. Musk appears to have been photographed using both iPhones and Samsung Galaxy devices at various points, and he has never publicly confirmed a single primary phone.

Unlike Apple CEO Tim Cook, whose device is effectively part of the job given Apple’s own product lineup, Musk has kept his personal technology choices largely private and has not endorsed any specific smartphone brand. That lack of official confirmation has left much of the public discussion around his phone use dependent on photographs captured by paparazzi and news photographers at public events, combined with occasional comments Musk himself has made on social media.

One of the more recent and verifiable sightings came earlier this year, when Musk was photographed entering a federal courthouse in California ahead of a hearing tied to his ongoing lawsuit against OpenAI. According to reporting on the image, Musk was seen holding a dark blue phone that appeared to be a model from Apple’s iPhone 17 Pro lineup.

That sighting is consistent with Musk’s history of publicly praising Apple’s camera technology, even amid his well-documented criticism of other aspects of Apple’s business practices. In an earlier exchange on X, after Apple CEO Tim Cook shared photographs taken by professional photographers using an iPhone 15 Pro Max, Musk responded by describing the resulting images and video as “stunning,” a comment often cited as evidence of at least some genuine appreciation for Apple’s hardware capabilities.

At the same time, Musk has also been photographed carrying Samsung devices on separate occasions. According to reporting from Efani, a security-focused technology publication, Musk has spoken positively about Samsung devices in the past and has been seen using Galaxy Ultra phones in public settings, including at high-visibility product demonstrations. That same reporting suggested Musk’s likely daily driver leans toward the latest generation iPhone Pro model, while noting his continued rhetorical openness to Android as a platform, given his stated concerns about maintaining independence from any single technology gatekeeper.

Musk has previously discussed a philosophical preference for the openness and customizability associated with Android as an operating system, even while frequently being photographed using Apple hardware in more recent public appearances. According to one analysis comparing the phone habits of major technology executives, Musk has “floated the idea that if Apple or Google ever made it impossible to operate freely on their platforms, he would consider building an alternative phone,” a comment that reflects his broader wariness of being dependent on any single company’s ecosystem rather than a firm current device preference.

At a notable 2025 public event, Musk was photographed alongside Google CEO Sundar Pichai during Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration, with Musk seen carrying an iPhone while Pichai was seen with a Google Pixel 9 Pro XL. Separate reporting has also placed Musk carrying a Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra during earlier public appearances, suggesting his device choice may vary depending on the specific context or occasion rather than reflecting strict brand loyalty to either ecosystem.

It’s worth noting that some online sources make far more specific and less verifiable claims about Musk’s phone use, including assertions about a heavily customized Samsung device tied to his companies’ technology, such as SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service or his Neuralink brain-computer interface venture. These particular claims appear in lower-quality, speculative online content and lack credible sourcing or photographic evidence, and should be treated with significant skepticism rather than as established fact.

Musk’s apparent use of multiple devices across different contexts is not unusual among high-profile technology executives. According to Efani’s broader survey of billionaire phone habits, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has consistently been associated with Samsung and Android devices for years, reportedly favoring the platform’s flexibility for testing software builds relevant to his own company’s products. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has separately confirmed, during a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” session, that he uses a Samsung Galaxy Z Fold, explaining that the device’s larger folding screen allows him to review documents, presentations and emails without relying as heavily on a separate tablet or laptop.

Given the absence of any direct, on-the-record statement from Musk definitively confirming a single primary smartphone, most credible reporting on the subject has settled on describing his habits as split between the two major platforms, likely using an iPhone as his primary device in many public and professional contexts while maintaining familiarity with, and periodic use of, Samsung’s Android-based Galaxy lineup as well. That dual-platform pattern aligns with reporting suggesting some technology executives maintain separate devices for personal communication, software testing and cross-platform compatibility checks tied to their own companies’ products, including Musk’s ownership of X, which requires ensuring the platform functions properly across both iOS and Android.

For now, without an official statement from Musk himself definitively naming a single device as his primary phone, the most accurate answer to the question of whether he uses an iPhone or a Galaxy device remains that available evidence points to both, with recent photographic sightings, including the courthouse appearance earlier this year, leaning toward the iPhone as his more commonly observed device in professional public settings, even as his own past comments and additional sightings suggest he has not entirely abandoned Samsung’s Android ecosystem either.