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.
YugaTech.com is the largest and longest-running technology site in the Philippines. Originally established in October 2002, the site was transformed into a full-fledged technology platform in 2005.
How to transfer, withdraw money from PayPal to GCash
Prices of Starlink satellite in the Philippines
Install Google GBox to Huawei smartphones
Pag-IBIG MP2 online application
How to check PhilHealth contributions online
How to find your SIM card serial number
Globe, PLDT, Converge, Sky: Unli fiber internet plans compared
10 biggest games in the Google Play Store
LTO periodic medical exam for 10-year licenses
Netflix codes to unlock hidden TV shows, movies
Apple, Asus, Cherry Mobile, Huawei, LG, Nokia, Oppo, Samsung, Sony, Vivo, Xiaomi, Lenovo, Infinix Mobile, Pocophone, Honor, iPhone, OnePlus, Tecno, Realme, HTC, Gionee, Kata, IQ00, Redmi, Razer, CloudFone, Motorola, Panasonic, TCL, Wiko
Best Android smartphones between PHP 20,000 - 25,000
Smartphones under PHP 10,000 in the Philippines
Smartphones under PHP 12K Philippines
Best smartphones for kids under PHP 7,000
Smartphones under PHP 15,000 in the Philippines
Best Android smartphones between PHP 15,000 - 20,000
Smartphones under PHP 20,000 in the Philippines
Most affordable 5G phones in the Philippines under PHP 20K
5G smartphones in the Philippines under PHP 16K
Smartphone pricelist Philippines 2024
Smartphone pricelist Philippines 2023
Smartphone pricelist Philippines 2022
Smartphone pricelist Philippines 2021
Smartphone pricelist Philippines 2020
Charles Chan says:
What oh my goodness, sayang sana we bought it.
benhur says:
if i am not mistaken, based from sulit.com.ph traffic, this would be the biggest site buy in the philippines.
we’re talking about multi-million pay day for rj.
congrats to him.
and your right yuga, SUPER-SEOd site it is.
IJ Styles says:
whoa.. di nga.. tinde talaga ng Sulit.. magkano kaya ang estimated price nun? haha..
Andre Marcelo-Tanner says:
nice, good for the local industry
dannybuntu says:
Surprised that this has not garnered that much attention as it should have… Anyway, I am reblogging this. Maybe it will once mainstream media gives the whole dish out…..
Sam says:
I don’t agree that Sulit is a super SEO’d site for the simple reason that even the owners themselves were not SEOs in the first place. I read about the story of Sulit and I once imagined having a site like that and actually bought a domain for that with a simpler software but didn’t have the time.
There is something in the algorithm of Google that seemed to open up gates for long tail keywords for Sulit. Those that takes the pages of Sulit way up high with so many keywords even in sort of fly away pages with literally no content.
SmartGilas.com says:
wow! thanks for info yuga!
McBilly says:
Holy OMG. This is big news. I’m curious on how much and if it was all cash or cash + stocks. And yes. This is good for the local industry! Galing! :D
SmartGilas.com says:
AyosDito and Sulit is now owned by Foreign giants!
=) nice competition…
dannybuntu says:
Smart, what foreign giants?
jun says:
ah talaga pati ayosdito.. kaya pala daming ads nila sa google adwords :)
katexter says:
Just a wild guess… Sale price of 7 to 10M?
benhur says:
guess ko 15,000,000. thats only USD 300k. kayo?
xxnxx says:
its was sold about 1,000,000 us dollars..
Dinah says:
may changes kaya para sa aming users sa sulit? baka magkaroon na ng bayad ang pag post ng ads? hmm, lets wait and see.
jun says:
sana hindi at marami aalis sa sulit.. ang worried ko lang yung sa paid advertisement.. 250 lang sya a month.. so baka magmahal.. palagay nyo
Alunsina Nunez says:
Wild guess? hmm, between 300M to 500M. That wouldnt be too far off mark.
T’m pretty sure changes in Sulit wouldnt take the form of paid ads. There are other ways of milking the cow. The Sulit Currency for instance. ;)
got mixed emotions actually. one one side i’m happy for them for getting something out of almost 4 years of blood and sweat. on the other side, having seen sulit grow for almost 3 years, being a member of the community, it will be sad to see it change hands.
still, no announcement yet from RJ. i’m eager to hear what he has to say.
if yuga is still contacting netpreneur, may i ask who their source is? about this news, i mean?
techpal says:
sayang na naman ang isang Proudly Filipino owned website, lagi na lang napupunta sa banyaga. Sana same management staff na lang ang mag handle kahit na expat na ang may-ari.
puralou says:
ang lufet ng sulit… i hope the owners were paid in usd rates.. sulit has really helped my business.. i am glad they became successful..
BrianB says:
I think sulit just got lucky, but I don’t think 500 mil is the sum. It must be a lot less but still in the tens of millions. Probably either a good or bad time to sell a successful site dahil crisis.
I also don’t think it was expertly SEO’d. Just got lucky, probably.
P says:
@BrianB
Expertly or not, patok sa mga Search Engines and Sulit.
Baka yaming ka lang kaya di mo na kelangan ng negosyo at mag-advertise o magtrabaho kaya di mo alam ang bagsik ng Sulit.
Just got lucky? – Yaming ka nga kase Tanga mo!~
RJ says:
I posted an official announcement regarding this in Sulit.com.ph forum:
http://www.sulit.com.ph/forum/viewtopic.php?t=79506
Rob says:
I am happy for the success of Sir Rj out of his “pay it forward” goal in his website.
Yes, in deed God’s blessing will pour out to those who are god to others.
And i believe, Rj and Arianne will still be managing the Sulit.com.ph website even if it was sold out to undisclosed amount.
In fact Rj himself made an announcement that they will still be the captains of the site and will still be adding more exciting features for the users.
Hmmmm, it’s worth buying for when you have sulit!
BrianB says:
P, before you open your mouth, try to educate yourself. SEO wouldn’t make a site nowadays. Daming SEO expert dyan na hindi kaya man lang mag-pa 100k sa alexa site nila.
and an ba ang Yaming, paki-clarify lang.
McMan says:
Sulit has the worst layout for me. I never find anything useful there.
Jhay says:
This is definitely big news. I wonder how the TPC fanboys would react to this.
Andre Marcelo-Tanner 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?
xxx says:
may sulit pa ba akala ko nag-sara na yan? di ba na-hack datiin yan? wala namang bbumibili dyan eh
puralou says:
ahh.. hindi pa pala binili…
Alunsina Nunez says:
@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. ;)
biliPH says:
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?
Joad says:
@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.
Ederic says:
Kung magkano man nabenta yun, tiyak na naka-sulit naman yung bumili. :p
pinoy2 Philippines says:
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..
Victor says:
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.
Livedito.com says:
next in line would be yugatech.com , congrats to sulit
negosyanteako.com says:
wow! its every webmasters dream…or ako lang hehehe galing sobra!!!
Mr. Gout Cure says:
LOL! Ebay.com is a global giant.
Ebay.ph ISN’T. It’s a rather crappy site with limited traffic if you ask me.
PinoyPSP says:
hmmmm, probably 5-15m?? judging from it’s traffic hindi bababa ng 5m ung site…
PI Outsource says:
Great for them!
PS: Alexa is garbage, unless you are in the Top 50.
Alex says:
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
pinoy2 Philippines says:
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,.
xavierlee says:
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.
Jhelo Cruz says:
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
gerry says:
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.
pertikacute says:
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.
Tyrone | Millionaire Acts says:
I’m late with the news. But definitely, the price too is big. I think it’s around 10M to 15M.
Doom says:
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.
SEO Expert Freelancer says:
I use Sulit to market my services and I am glad that it Sulit helped me gain new clients and flagged employers-to-be.
edz says:
80k visitors a day, tingin ko hundred million di pwedeng bumaba ng 100M yan kasi kumikita ang sulit ng Million a month.
enhancement says:
Ouch! I just knew this news. We just hope that the new owner/s of the site will keep up to the changing needs of the visitors.
Nokia China Phones says:
Sayang ngayon ko lang nabasa to. Nabenta na pala ang Sulit.com.ph. So ano kaya update nito ngayon?
Manny says:
Sayang ngayon ko lang nabasa to. Nabenta na pala ang Sulit.com.ph. So ano kaya update nito ngayon?
John says:
Wonderful site, glad they got the opportunity to compete with the likes of eBay.
Tech Blogger says:
how about yugatech? how much would you sell it for? just curious :D
woopads.com says:
wasn’t sulit originally owned by a foreigner in the first place?
jony says:
I believe sulit.com.ph bought by olx.com.ph. vist olx.com.ph, go to that bottom of that page and click on Philippians,(OLX CLOSE TO YOU). you will see there……..
I like olx …..
Kanor says:
hahaha kala ko olx yung binili ng sulit
angaling says:
Sigurado na marami pagbabago…abangan na lang natin.
Jeanne says:
“ang hindi mo na kailangan, ibenta mo na!”
ibinenta na sa olx dahil hindi na nila kailangan! nya! ha! ha!
sa ayosdito.ph nlng tayo!
or it could mean a good opportunity for others to build new classified ads site! yung pinoy ang dating pra mas sumikat sa mga pinoy.
online seller says:
Sayang nga yung sulit.com.ph it is now owned by a foreign company. How can the purchaser recoup the purchase price, siguradong maniningil yan sa mga users.
I saw another sulit buy and sell site which is absolutely free. Walang Sulit Gold and the ads life is whopping 2 years free!! Sa sulit.com.ph 30 days lang me bayad na.
A very good alternative is advertise in another sulit. Here’s the site name. And the site is really beautiful and very easy to use. Better than the old sulit. Check this out:
http://www.sulit.net