Tucows has a banner year and discusses rising aftermarket domain sale prices.
Today Tucows reported record quarterly revenue of $26.4 million for the last quarter. That’s the seventh record revenue quarter in a row for the company. The company posted $97 million in revenue for the year; a record.
Here are some other interesting facts from its investor conference call:
YummyNames, which monetizes and sells Tucows’ inventory of domain names, saw its revenue up 24% year over year. It also had a record average selling price.
Tucows CEO Elliott Noss said that over the past 12 months, the average selling price of individual names has more than doubled.
I’m not usually a big fan of averages because a few sales can skew the number. But I think YummyNames’ domains sell in a fairly consistent band, so this is actually an interesting data point.
The company also moved much of its inventory of domain names to a new domain name parking company. As a result, the company had flat parking revenue for the quarter — compared to a falling trend in previous quarters.
I guess it’s true — “flat is the new growth” in domain parking.
(Bill Sweetman, who runs YummyNames, was recently promoted to Vice President.)
Tucows’ retail operation Hover benefited from the company’s opposition of SOPA. It picked up Wikia, run by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, as a client thanks in part to its stance against SOPA.
Noss also said he’ll be surprised if there are fewer than 1,000 applications for new top level domain names.
rs says
All my names are at Tucows. I think they are the safest registrar. I got a domain account about a month or two after they started selling domains. Maybe 1990?
Francois says
Congrats to Bill for the well deserved promotion!
Domain Apps Kelly says
Nice! Congrats Bill!!