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Wix’s business rebounds in Q3

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What slowdown?

A picture of a stock chart with red and green blocks and the words "earnings report", with the Wix.com logo

Website platform Wix (NASDAQ: WIX) reported earnings today.

Collections (cash sales) rebounded in Q3 after sputtering in Q2. Collections in the third quarter of 2021 were $373.3 million, up 33% year over year. Collections were up 29% year over year in the second quarter but down sequentially from Q1.

Q3 revenue came in at $320.8 million, up 26% year over year.

The company breaks its revenue into two categories: Creative Subscriptions, which is basically its website builder product, and Business Solutions, which include add-ons such as communications tools, payment services, and marketing products.

Creative Subscriptions revenue in the third quarter of 2021 was $241.3 million, up 19% year over year. Business Solutions revenue in the third quarter of 2021 was $79.5 million, up 55% year over year.

The rebound is similar to GoDaddy’s experience. GoDaddy saw negative signals and results toward the end of Q2 and lowered expectations, only to report an improving picture with Q3 results.

Similarly, after Q2 Wix lowered its full-year guidance for revenue to $1.255-1.270 billion, down from $1.280-1.290 billion. Now it is raising guidance to $1.265-1.274 billion.

After Q@, the company also lowered its collections guidance to $1.40-1.435 billion, down from $1.44-1.46 billion. Now it is raising collections guidance to $1.415-1.439 billion.

DomainTools acquires Farsight Security

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Two cybersecurity companies with deep domain industry ties are getting together.

Photo of Paul Vixie

Dr. Paul Vixie, cofounder of Farsight Security.

DomainTools has acquired Farsight Security, the two companies announced today.

In a blog post, DomainTools CEO Tim Chen explained why the marriage makes sense:

It’s clear the combination of [Farsight’s] active DNS data collection, driven by DomainTools’ comprehensive and continuously updated map of new and existing domain names, and the passive observation of worldwide DNS communications and what new and existing domains and hostnames are actually seeing live DNS queries, is an extremely powerful one. This is why we have integrated Farsight passive DNS data into our Iris Investigate product for 5 years and why DomainTools was one of the few organizations Farsight Security allowed to resell its powerful API.

Dr. Paul Vixie, founder of Farsight, said DomainTools was one of many suitors for the company:

At the end of the corporate development process, several acquirers were ready to buy out our shareholders at a similar valuation, and so the Board left it to me as Founder/CEO to select the acquirer who would give our other constituencies—the customers, partners, and employee families—the best future. I chose DomainTools without hesitation. DomainTools is a long-time partner and reseller so I know their management team and their corporate culture, and they know Farsight and they know what makes us unique. For continuity of services, vision, and culture I feel lucky to have had this outcome available.

DomainTools is a security company that was born from domain data including Whois. Domain investors were majority owners until Battery Ventures made a strategic investment in the company last year.

Domaining.com compromised

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Extent of breach is unknown but the site did not store credit card details.

A breach notice on Domaining.com

Domaining.com is displaying this breach notice.

Domaining.com has been compromised.

Francois Carrillo, who operates the domain blog aggregator, posted on Twitter today that he has closed login functionality while he investigates:

It’s good to hear that the site didn’t store any credit card information.

Few people use Domaining.com’s login functionality, so the breach shouldn’t impact too many people. Accounts are only required for people who want to customize what they see, boost/sponsor posts, and bloggers who manage their content.

Anyone who has a registered account and reuses passwords at other sites should change their passwords at those sites.

Revenue and DUMs up over 5% at Verisign

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Verisign turns in another predictable quarter.

Picture of stock chart with the words earnings report

Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) reported earnings after the bell today.

Q3 2021 revenue was up 5.1% year over year to $334 million. Net income came in at $157 million. That’s down from $171 million in the same quarter last year but up $10 million after accounting for an unrecognized tax gain in Q3 2020.

.Com and .net domains under management (DUMs) increased 5.1% year over year to 172.1 million. Customers registered 10.7 million new .com and .net domains during the quarter, down from 10.9 million in the same quarter of 2020. Remember that domain registrations were booming a year ago as companies moved online due to the pandemic. DUMs increased by 1.48 million during the quarter after accounting for deletions.

Verisign raised the price to register and renew .com domains by 7% on September 1. That increase will start to juice margins as the company recognizes revenue from registrations and renewals made after August.

CentralNic boasts 29% organic growth through Q3, stock surges

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Company reports continued surge in the latter half of 2022.

Picture of stock chart with the words earnings report

Domain name and online advertising company CentralNic (AIM: CNIC) announced today that its organic revenue grew 29% through Q3 2021 compared to the same period last year. Adding in revenue from acquisitions, revenue is up 66% during this time.

The company says revenue through September was at least $280 million, compared to $168.5 in the first three quarters of 2020.

Organic growth accelerated in the third quarter; Q1 organic growth was 16% and Q2 organic growth was 25%.

CentralNic’s biggest acquisition win is likely Team Internet, a domain monetization company it acquired in 2019 for less than 4 times adjusted EBITDA. Internet advertising prices took off the following year as the pandemic pushed businesses online. (Revenue per thousand (RPM) for domain parking, including at Team Internet’s ParkingCrew, lifted significantly that year. The company subsequently acquired more online advertising platforms. While this has propelled the company’s growth of late, this type of revenue is generally less stable than that from domain registration, its core business as of a couple of years ago.

Shares are up about 8% today to 123.5 pence as of 8:20 am PDT. The stock has surged over 40% since the beginning of June.

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