Neustar pays $109 million for registry that runs .co domain name.
Domain name registry Neustar has acquired .CO Internet S.A.S and associated assets for $109 million, the company announced moments ago.
.CO Internet, which commercialized the .Co domain name starting in 2010, exited last year with an annual revenue run rate of $21 million.
[See more: Why Neustar paid $109 million for .CO Internet.]
The registry has over 1.6 million domain names currently registered. Registrars price .Co registrations typically 2-3 times higher than .com domain names.
.CO spends aggressively on marketing, even appearing in three Super Bowls in conjunction with domain registrar GoDaddy. In addition to getting the .Co domain name base, Neustar is getting a team that has proven itself adept at marketing. Neustar is typically known in the domain business for its technical competency rather than marketing prowess.
The .Co domain name is about to enter an interesting period where it faces additional competition from new top level domain names. At the same time, Neustar is in jeopardy of losing a lucrative telephone contract and is in search of additional revenue streams.
Neustar is already the backend registry provider for .Co and earned about $4 million in that role last year.
The acquisition does not include POP.co and Nu dot Co LLC (applicant for a handful of new TLDs).
Congratulations! on a well done job.
Hats off.
Wow – i can’t believe they were paying $4mm a year to maintain 1.6mm registrations. astonishing.
About $2.50 each. That does seem high to me, but perhaps there was more involved.
“Registrars price .Co registrations typically 2-3 times higher than .com domain names.” – they are actually priced lower than .com at registration price, and 25% to 50% higher for renewals.
Congrats to .CO and Neustar.
Bound to be further consolidation in the space. Im looking for when Yahoo makes a play Minds + Machines Ltd, in order to gain traction in the new gTLD space.
Marissa Mayer’s logical option to address Googles dominant position.
Every time people mention a rumor about a publicly listed company (like Minds + Machines) being a takeover target I wonder whether who posted has a vested interest in what such rumor can achieve.
Who said anything about a takeover for M+M being current? Its stated that it would a logical move as opposed to one being considered at this particular moment in time. Paranoia needs to be put into check.
Lots of people have a vested interest in a publicly traded company being taken over.
@Allemann,
DNW is doing a great job bringing relevant news, timely, and professionally. Thanks
Thanks
Agree on that. I’m beginning to rely much more on DNW for news . Well done Andrew.
Thank you guys, great report!
this is Juans blog post, looks better for .co holder than originally thought (ie an exit) and turning it over to neustar.
http://www.go.co/blog/2014/03/20/its-onward-upward-for-co/#respond
It is better IF they continue to market the heck out of the domain. Hopefully they won’t just harvest it.
Is this the same Neustar that let .US languish while other cctlds are thriving?
Yes, and .biz. Neustar looked at itself as a technical services provider and let marketing languish. Perhaps if they let the .co loose to help with other TLDs…
Isn’t it funny that in .US is a vast, open, largely untapped namespace, yet somehow there was this pressing, indisputable need to create thousands of dot whatevers.
One word: NEXUS
Unless they are trying to use the marketing expertise of the .CO people, it does not bode well for .CO going forward in my opinion. They have not done much to make .US what it can be or could have been. Only time will tell.
I think $ 2.50 sounds cheap for a start-up gtld back office operation.
That’s quite a big investment but I’m sure will give a high return of investment. .COm is better than .CO, but .CO is better than other new gLTD. New gLTD only makes domain buying and selling industry drop.
The new gTLDs are just going into GA in many cases, so way too early to say .co is better then then the more specific oriented gTLDs.
Big amount $109 million. So .co will be more pricy