David Kaplan
paidContent.org
Thursday, April 3, 2008; 4:07 PM

Craigslist stands to bring in $81 million in revenue in 2008, according to a report by researcher Classified Intelligence. If that comes true, it would represent a 47 percent gain over Craigslist's $55 million revenues for 2007. Despite a growing challenge from eBay-owned community postings site Kijiji.com, which launched in a number of U.S. cities last summer after establishing itself in Canada and Europe, CI believes Craigslist could top $100 million in revenues if it continues to add fees and site enhancements.

Peter Zollman, founding principal of CI and the report's author, praises Craigslist's ability to generate as much money as it does, considering it has just 25 employees and charges below-market rates for its ads - roughly, $25 to $75 for job posts in 11 markets, $10 for apartment listings in New York. Zollman: "What's more amazing is that frequently when it adds fees, it improves the product and makes its users and customers even happier."

Although Craigslist, which has a presence in 450 markets, acts like a non-proft in some ways, it has been pretty aggressive on challenging traditional newspaper publishers for classified listings revenues and maintaining its lead against potential rivals. One example cited by Zollman in the report includes the recent introduction of five non-English sites ? French, Portuguese, Italian, German and Spanish. Release

-- Update: The full report (not available online) details how far Craiglist has come: in 2003, the company generated about $7 million in revenue. As it now stands, each month Craigslist nets 9 billlion pageviews, posts over 30 million new classified ads and features at least 2 million job listings. The report also outlines the challenges Craigslist faces as it grows, faces competition from other startups like Quebec's LesPac and Tucson, AZ-based Freecycle. I spoke to CI's Zollman about that and the reports other findings and his thoughts on whether Craigslist would ever consider being acquired. More after the jump.

-- Driving growth: The expected 47 percent revenue boost CI is anticipating for Craigslist is not due to the addition of the specialty language sites or any of the new cities that they're now charging to run ads on. It's based on current charges in the 11 markets and the apartment ads in New York City. Zollman: "If they added another three or four markets just in recruitment in the near term, that would probably get them to top $100 million in annual revenue."

-- Subtle response to competition: Craigslist's non-profit ethos - although it is clearly "for profit" - is critical to their ability to continue to attract users and advertisers. Maintaining that stance is only going to become more difficult as it grows. "Craiglist claims not to worry about competition, but I think launching five separate language sites is at least a subtle response to the moves by a mix of fee-based and free classified sites like Zillow, Move.com Autotrader.com and sites like SFGate, which operate along with a newspaper publisher."

-- Ultimate value?: Zollman: "I don't want to pull numbers out of thin air, but if Facebook was worth $15 billion, what is Craigslist worth? It earns considerable revenue and a widely respected brand and ethos. But valuation is irrelevant if you're not selling, unless you think of it as a fun exercise, and there's no indication that Craigslist is willing to sell. It's just the opposite, in fact. Number two, if it was purchased by a giant conglomerate - or anyone that has $1 billion or $15 billion in his back pocket - in some important ways, it wouldn't be Craigslist anymore."