Company’s portfolio still profitable, but challenges abound.
Dark Blue Sea has reported its annual results for the period ending June, and it isn’t pretty.
The company reported profits plunged 74.38% to only $695,955 AUD for the year. This is well below the company’s guidance just a couple months ago. In the prior year the company earned $2.72M. Revenue fell 14.9% to $26.65M. Working capital fell from $5.18M at the beginning of the period to $4.1M at the end.
Although profits are down, the company is still eking out profits thanks to its domain portfolio. The company currently owns 420,000 domain names which get about 190,000 unique visitors per day. This generated $2.46M in revenue last year, which, when combined with $3.55M in domain sales revenue, generates a profit. The company owned over 550,000 domains at the beginning of the year, so it has dropped about 130,000 domains.
Dark Blue Sea runs the Fabulous registrar and domain name parking service.
The full annual report is available on the company’s web site.
Chef Patrick says
Wow, that is a huge drop!
Andrew Allemann says
@ Chef Patrick – yes, but it’s promising that the company’s own portfolio remains profitable when you include sales. GoDaddy pulling the plug on its distribution agreement will hurt, though.
Robbie says
The GD agreement is going to have a big effect but I hope they pull through.
Patrick McDermott says
“The company currently owns 420,000 domain names which get about 190,000 unique visitors per day. This generated $2.46M in revenue last year”
SAssuming all .COMs and a $6.86 domain renewal fee:
420,000 x $6.86 = $2,881,200
(this does not include ICANN’s 18 cents fee per applicable domain)
The $2,881,200 domain renewal cost is more than the $2.46M revenue earned so they really are dependent on domain sales.
—
“The company owned over 550,000 domains at the beginning of the year, so it has dropped about 130,000 domains.”
The problem is you can only sell a particular domain once.
Once you run out of domains to sell, then what?
—
Speaking of domain renewal prices,it’s almost October.
Any peep out of Verisign regarding any renewal price changes?
Andrew Allemann says
@ Patrick – correct, domain sales are a key component. They actually pay $7.06 per domain (maybe 2 cents less if they signed the new ICANN agreement).
VeriSign won’t be raising prices this year. It has to give something like a 6-9 month notice of any price increase.
Jay says
I love fabulous but with their recent new pricing structure my prices went up .59 per name which now makes them .30 more per name than godaddy so I had to move back to godaddy. If I had a use for the free whois privacy I would stick with them but I don’t need it and .30 x hundreds of domains is a few hundred a year in savings. Another advantage they have is the currency exchange rate from the US to AU dollar which gives them even more. I wouldn’t have minded a .10 to .30 raise per name but a .59 jump overnight and you lose my business considering this wasn’t an icann raise and nobody else raised prices. This is what I have spent in the last few months…
March 2009: $200.00
April 2009: $1,214.41
May 2009: $300.00
June 2009: $350.00
July 2009: $0.00
August 2009: $0.00
I saw another article saying they were looking to hire a business consultant. I’ll offer my services for free. Have your reps reach out to existing clients and secure those relationships and work special deals to retain your existing base before implementing a .19 to 1.69 raise per name or you are going to see a lot of July & August months like above. I still like Fabulous but from a business angle I’m done.
ActNow says
I don’t see any reason why Fab. should go away.
They might have to get leaner with the GD loss (I don’t know if it was profitable for them or not).
But, they still offer the same services they had 2 yrs ago. (registrar, ppc service and dn brokerage.)
I trust Fab. more than some of the other registrars.
ActNow says
Jay,
I know my cost with Fab. is much cheaper than with Enom (ETP acct.).
The problem with GD is all of the games.
Plus, the advantage of Fab. is that it is outside the reach of U.S. courts.
(Unfortunately, not Verisign.)
How quickly we forget about the governors who wanted to grab your domains on a whim.
(Kentucky and another state??)
Jay says
I’ll agree Fabulous & Network Solutions gave much better responses than Enom & GoDaddy regarding the gambling issue. There are positives to using a registrar not in the United States but there is also a negative that if I am filing against you I can file in your home state or your registrars home state, so if I wanted to be a d_ck I could file them all in Australia and see if you decided to fly across the world to defend yourself, personally I would rather have to fly to Arizona/GoDaddy than Australia/Fabulous. If I lived in Australia Fabulous all day long but being the United States that’s a hell of a flight if someone decides to test your finances for airfare.
RKB says
Well said ActNow.
I like Fabulous a lot….we all want lower prices but overall fabulous is a solid trustworthy company.
Johnny says
That’s only .4524 uniques per domain, per day. That’s really poor.
Has anyone ever really taken a good look at Fabulous’ domains? They are for the most part very poor domains. Back in the day they regged anything and everything without regard to quality, now they are paying for it out of their own pocket…..hence the drop/sale of 130,000 domains to cut overhead and make a litte cash.
I’ll also say that the CTR and RPC at Fabulous has absolutely tanked.
What used to be a 38% CTR for me at Fab has dropped to less than 10%….and these are prime generics. I’d almost swear there is something wrong with their tracking of uniques or clicks because if I did not feel in my gut that Fab was totally honest, I’d think they were shaving.
Something is definitely wrong over there….no matter how much I like the guys and their service.