Tucows reports earnings, says domain investors are proceeding cautiously on domain buys as they assess the impact of new TLDs.
Tucows reported earnings this afternoon, recording its twelfth consecutive quarter of record revenue (year over year).
The company generated $30.0 million in revenue during the first quarter of 2013 and reported a slight profit of $0.1 million for the quarter.
That compares to a $1.7 million profit in the same quarter last year. Most of the difference was due to additional investments of about $1 million during the quarter for the acquisition of new Ting customers. Ting is Tucows’ mobile phone offering. The rest was due primarily to foreign exchange and a one time sale of intangible assets in Q1 2012.
Tucows’ Retail business was its big growth driver this quarter, generating $4.3 million compared to $1.8 million in Q1 2012. The retail segment includes domain registrar Hover.com and Ting.
The company pulled in $2.3 million in Ting mobile device and service sales during the quarter. It finished March with 16,000 Ting subscribers and 26,000 devices under management. That’s 6,000 more subscribers and 11,000 more devices than at the end of 2012.
The portfolio segment, which includes monetizing the company’s domain portfolio through parking and domain sales, generated $1.1 million in the quarter. That compares to $1.9 million in the same quarter last year. $0.5 million of the decrease was due to lower domain sales, which the company says was due to lower sales of “big ticket” domains.
In its quarterly report, Tucows claims that it’s seeing evidence that some domain investors are assessing the impact of new TLDs on their businesses. This is slowing their domain investment purchases.
“the BIG White Freaking Elephant”
“Tucows reports earnings, says domain investors are proceeding cautiously on domain buys as they assess the impact of new TLDs.”
bound to get much worse and this will last for many many years to come…