Expired domains revenue continues to lift results at Tucows.
Tucows (NASDAQ: TCX) reported first-quarter earnings after the market closed yesterday.
Overall revenue increased 8% year over year to $94.6 million, with the domain business growing 6% to $65.3 million.
Gross margin for the domain business increased 9% to $20.2 million.
The increase came despite domains under management decreasing by 2% and total transactions falling by 6%. In prepared commentary, Tucows Domains CEO Dave Woroch stated that this was primarily due to one large customer moving its domain business in-house rather than relying on Tucows’ reseller platform.
Value Added Services, which includes revenue Tucows generates from selling expired domains, grew from $4.7 million in Q1 2024 to $5.9 million in the latest quarter.
Echoing last quarter, Woroch said this was driven by strong, high-margin sales from the company’s expiry stream. Tucows sells its expired domains through GoDaddy Auctions, which also reported a strong quarter for domain sales.
Tucows has 24.3 million domains under management, including those on its own accreditations and those of registrars that use its platform.
Is there another large registrar with more technical debt than Tucows? Simply removing a domain lock on a single domain required a time-consuming tech support chat last week.
They’re burning the furniture at this stage.