Fewer large aftermarket transactions hurt Q1 results.
GoDaddy (NYSE: GDDY) reported Q1 2023 earnings this afternoon.
The company’s revenue was up 3.3% year over year, but revenue for the Core Platform segment that includes domains was down by 0.2% compared to Q2 2022.
GoDaddy blames a lack of large aftermarket domain name transactions for part of the decrease.
In prepared statements, GoDaddy CEO Aman Bhutani noted:
One area we continue to watch carefully is our Aftermarket business. We faced tough compares last quarter and continued unevenness in flow of large deals that we believe is impacted by broader macro headwinds.
In other words, Q1 2022 was really good, and there were fewer large transactions in Q1 2023.
In its 10-Q filing, the company disclosed that aftermarket revenue declined 8% year over year.
Unlike most of its business, Aftermarket domain sales count as current revenue when the transactions occur. These sales juice revenues but are not recurring like hosting and domain registration purchases.
The company also announced that it has rolled out its “list for sale” technology to other registrars. This allows those registrars’ customers to list domains for sale on Afternic through their preferred registrar rather than Afternic.
GoDaddy is shooting itself in the foot and ruining the domain industry with its worthless automated appraisals, which make buyers hesitant to purchase domains for what they are worth, imo.
Godaddy should not have spent all that money buying Dan.
They are trying to grow by buying high growth companies, and then killing them off, and ticking off their clientele. Not hard to figure it out.
To protect their bloated dominance, GoDaddy squashed many innovations by Dan.com & Uniregistry / DomainNameSales.com. Were the promises by Dan.com to become an at-cost registrar (“very soon!”) true at all – or only a spur toward buyout. Now startups will develop aiming for GoDaddy sellout as exit strategy.