I just read through the earning call transcript that Tucows held yesterday after the released their earnings and found a few interesting facts and figures.
On the call Tucows CEO Elliot Noss said that :
Q1 was a record quarter for individual domain sales from our portfolio, with sales of gems being especially strong.
“Revenue increased 61% year-over-year.
“On previous calls I have discussed the success of our efforts to increase the average selling price of brandables and gems, and we saw this again in Q1 as we achieved another record average selling price, and our largest ever number of transactions in excess of $10,000.”
I’d like to remind you of my comment earlier that we did have a disproportionately large amount of gem sales in Q1, which we expect to even out over the year.”
“Growth in, both, new registrations and renewed registrations, was strong, at 24% and 21%, respectably. ”
“We, also, saw healthy sequential growth in overall transactions volume at 15%.”
“Renewal rates continue to be strong and take up slightly at 76%, remaining above the industry average.”
“Total domains under management at the end of Q1 were up 9% from the same point last year and surpassed the 12 million mark for the first time.”
“Finally, a brief note on the new top level domain name program.”
“The original target set by ICANN were for applications to close on April 12th, and for all applicants and applications to be made public by May 1st.”
“Due to technical difficulties that have been quite public, those dates have not been met, and the exact dates are still to be determined. We had expected to share some information on this call, but given the change in dates we will not be doing so.”
It sounds like Tucows may have some gTLD plans of their own, well won’t share any information because the application system still is going to re-open.
presumably those are names they had no rights to, never bought? just expired from customers and absconded?
i was going to say the same thing.
I remember all the talk about how tucows was the only respectable place blah blah
What bullshit.
They are basically taking domains they have no rights to.
where do the names of old school registrars come from? they are supposed to be deleted but are sold and auctioned instead which was supposed to be illegal originally, they didnt buy them like everyone else in a fair market, I have no idea what tucows does but clearly enom, register.com, nsi, and snap and namejet auctions are in this category to a large degree, not fair for real competitors who pay a fortune for things that should be $7, NSI/Verisian is a politically and CIA connected group from virginia tied to senator warner and the commerce department, dc area beltway bandit big time contractors with ties, all a scam
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/VeriSign+Proposes+Anti-Competitive+Waiting+List+Service%3B…-a082001826
LMFAO at domainers complaining about a registrar being “unfair” by witholding valuable, expiring domain names.
Talk about being disconnected from the facts!
You clowns do realize that the entire domain ecosystem is fundamentally a gigantic abuse of process, hijacked by people with narrow interests, operating this way because there is no meaningful regulation?
You think owning shell registrars for the sole purpose of barraging Verisign with registry requests, “pre-releasing” expired domains to be fought over by domain speculators in auctions- not to mention the entire process of mass keyword speculation itself- is what Postel had in mind?
Tucows is simply engaging in the same business every one of you (I should say “us”, since I do too) do, by putting themselves between the domain and the end-user and taking their cut. This idea of “fairness” or “integrity” in this process is absurd, which probably explains the motley crew of characters that make up this industry.
Jesus Christ, talk about living in your own little bubble.
interesting. Hey Mike M, I vaguely recall reading on other blog posts/comments that you get first dibs at Namejet expiring names ? I’m curious, and I’m sure others are too, about more information about your arrangement. Do you pay per domain, or annually/monthly/weekly/ etc?
Obviously seems like a smart move if it’s true- just wondering how that works.