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GoDaddy and Namecheap add most .com domains

by — Domain Registrars 0 Comments

These are the fastest growing and largest domain name registrars for .com domains.

Picture of a column chart and a magnifying glass with the words ".com leaderboard"

ICANN has published the latest official data from Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) about the .com namespace. This registrar-by-registrar report covers February 2021.

There was little movement in terms of rankings this month.

Here’s how registrars did in terms of new .com registrations in February:

1. GoDaddy.com* (NYSE: GDDY) 925,152 (978,334 in January)
2. Namecheap Inc. 264,318 (291,257)
3. Newfold Digital+ 206,774 (212,014)
4. Tucows** (NASDAQ:TCX) 181,553 (205,679)
5. Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOGL) 158,100 (169,363)
6. Alibaba (HiChina) 121,647 (154,990)
7. IONOS^ 128,099 (79,960)
8. CentralNic^^ (AIM: CNIC) 116,995 (73,360)
9. Wix (NASDAQ: WIX) 101,812 (113,294)
10. Dynadot 96,021 (98,314)

Here’s the leaderboard of the top registrars in terms of total .com registrations under management as of the end of February.

1. GoDaddy*  55,682,410 (55,445,265 in January)
2. Newfold Digital+ 14,503,701 (14,525,308)
3. Tucows** 12,966,924 (12,977,992)
4. Namecheap 7,322,036 (7,175,485)
5. Alibaba  6,089,089 (6,122,968)
6. IONOS^ 5,826,355 (5,773,208)
7. TurnCommerce++ 4,704,384 (4,647,632)
8. Google 4,274,969 (4,193,876)
9. CentralNic^^ 3,079,555 (3,000,932)
10. GMO  2,087,633 (2,089,337)

Many domain companies have multiple accreditations and I’ve tried to capture the largest ones. See the notes below.

* Includes GoDaddy, Wild West Domains, Uniregistry and 123 Reg
** Includes Tucows, Enom, Ascio and EPAG
+ Includes PDR, Domain.com, FastDomain, Bigrock, Network Solutions, Register.com, SnapNames registrars, and Crazy Domains/Dreamscape. There are other Newfold registrars, but these are the biggest.
++ Includes NameBright and DropCatch registrars
^ Includes 1&1, PSI, Cronon, United-Domains, Arsys and world4you
^^ Includes Key-Systems, 1API, Internet.bs, TLD Registrar Solutions, RegistryGate, Moniker, Instra

ICANN to terminate Pheenix domain registrar

by — Domain Registrars 14 Comments

This Phoenix won’t rise from the dead.

Black background with red block letters stating "Pheenix Terminated"

ICANN is terminating its accreditation agreement with domain name registrar Pheenix.

The domain name overseer sent a breach notice to the registrar on April 25 and followed up with a termination notice today.

Pheenix hasn’t been paying its accreditation fees and hasn’t responded to ICANN about various complaints dating to October 2019.

ICANN is soliciting bids for other domain name registrars to take over Pheenix’s domain names.

Pheenix was once a large drop catching business and had about 500 accreditations. In the most recent Verisign report published by ICANN, Pheenix had about 5,000 .com domains remaining under management.

GoDaddy Managed WordPress sites are down

by — Domain Registrars 1 Comment

Sites hosted on GoDaddy’s Managed WordPress service were down Thursday evening.

GoDaddy logo showing the heart-shaped design

[Update: the problem was resolved on Thursday, but I’m hearing from other GoDaddy customers about intermittent issues.]

GoDaddy experienced issues with its hosting platform Thursday evening. Sites that use its Managed WordPress products were down as of the time of posting. The issue appears to have begun around 3:45 PM PDT today and was resolved arond 5 pm PDT.

The GoDaddy system status page did not reflect the outage but GoDaddy confirmed the issue via its Twitter account. It did not offer an expected time to restore services.

In November 2020, GoDaddy faced a widespread outage that impacted all of its front end services and websites. It lasted about four hours.

Wix revenue soars but stock plummets

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Stock trades lower after first quarter report.

Chart showing revenue growth at Wix

Wix’s revenue was up 41% year over year in Q1 2021.

Website creator Wix (NASDAQ: WIX) reported strong growth and a narrower loss than expected in the first quarter of this year, but its stock is off 15% in trading today.

Revenue in Q1 was $304.1 million, up 41% year over year. Collections (sales) clocked in at $351.1 million, also up 41% year over year.

Wix breaks its revenue into two categories: creative subscriptions, which is basically its website builder product, and business solutions, which includes add-ons such as communications tools, payment services, and marketing products.

Creative made up the bulk of revenue in Q1 ($226.4 million) but grew at 28%, compared to 97% growth for business solutions.

While Wix and other web presence companies benefited from businesses going online during the pandemic, the company also thinks it can capture upside as the pandemic wanes. It noted that over 40% of the gross payment volume it handled in Q1 was from non-retail store businesses such as restaurants, fitness, beauty, and events.

For the second quarter, Wix anticipates year-over-year revenue growth of 30%-32% and collections growth of 29%-32%. It nudged up its full-year guidance for revenue and collections but slightly reduced its expected free cash flow range for the year.

Conspicuously absent from this quarter’s report is data on the number of new registrations and net paying subscribers, a metric included in previous quarterly press releases.

Tucows reports earnings and domain business growth

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Revenue nudges upward as focus on profit pays off.

Tucows logo

Tucows (NASDAQ: TCX) reported first-quarter results (pdf) after the market closed yesterday.

The company’s headline financials are a bit convoluted because it sold its mobile business to DISH last year in an earnout deal.

Taking out mobile, revenue for the rest of the business was up 4% year over year. Its adjusted EBITDA measure was essentially flat.

Revenue from its domains segment, including Enom and Tucows, was up 3% year over year. The company continues to focus on profitability for the segment and reported a 14% increase in gross margin dollars compared to the first quarter of 2020. Adjusted EBITDA for the domains segment was $13.8 million, up $2.3 million and 20% from Q1 2020.

Tucows notes that Q1 is usually its strongest for domain names.

The pandemic has accelerated a shift to online business, which has helped grow the domain business. Tucows notes that the growth is normalizing, and the next quarter will lap the surge seen as the shift began last year.

Tucows continues to turn in solid renewal numbers. Renewal rates in its wholesale segment were 80%, and its retail were a staggering 86%.

The company manages 25.8 million domains, although not all of them are on its accreditations.

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