• Home
  • About Us
  • Contact
  • Advertise
  • Awards
  • Privacy Policy
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • RSS
TheDomains.com

Minds + Machines Finds Operating New gTLD Much Less Profitable Than Selling Apps: Swing To a Loss

September 22, 2015 by Michael Berkens

Minds + Machines Group Ltd  (LON:MMX) reported today the company’s financial results for the 1st half of 2015.

Minds + Machines swung to a pretax loss for the first half of 2015 “due to it seeing a lower gain from participating in generic top-level domain auctions”

Minds + Machines reported a  pretax loss of $3.7 million for the half year to ending June 30th, from a pretax profit of $4.9 million, “mostly as a result of lower profit from participating in generic top-level domain auctions”.

In the previous year the company saw a $11.9 million profit from participating in losing new gTLD auctions, whereas in the first half of 2015 this profit was just $4.5 million.

However Minds + Machines revenue from operating new gTLD strings were $1.97m for the first 6 months of 2015 up from  billings $449,000 in the first half of last year,.

At the end of June, Minds + Machines said 217,200 domains were under management, representing 3.43% of the new gTLD market.

Minds + Machines said it has cut $2.24 million of annualized costs since late May, and has identified a further  $700,000 of costs to cut.

“The second half of 2015 will see the launches of .law, .abogado and .miami, while there is also the prospect of renewals from gTLDs launched last year. Early indications for .London point to renewal rates being significantly above industry norms”

At the end of June the company had cash of $48.3 Million on hand.

Minds + Machines authorized a stock repurchase programme “that could see £15 Milliojn of shares bought back in the open market over the next 12 months”

Chief Executive Officer Antony Van Couvering is quoted as saying:

“While first half results were impacted by significant operating costs, we have reduced these costs dramatically in the third quarter of 2015, as will become apparent in future results. The board is firmly committed to achieving cross-over to operating profitability in 2016 and to fully monetising our excellent TLD portfolio”

Other new gTLD’s that Minds + Machines still has applications for include .INC, .LLC, .CPA, .Gay

Shares in Minds + Machines were up 5.9% at 8.60 pence Tuesday morning and has a market cap of £73.15 m

 

Filed Under: Minds+Machines, New gTLD's

About Michael Berkens

Michael Berkens, Esq. is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of TheDomains.com. Michael is also the co-founder of Worldwide Media Inc. which sold around 70K domain to Godaddy.com in December 2015 and now owns around 8K domain names . Michael was also one of the 5 Judges selected for the the Verisign 30th Anniversary .Com contest.

« Domain Movers: Bows.com, Guest.com, PetBasics.com & More Domains
JC.com, KC.com and MW.com 2 Letter Domain Names All Sell »

Comments

  1. jose says

    September 22, 2015 at 8:19 am

    the first crack on the gTLD bust

  2. Seb says

    September 22, 2015 at 8:36 am

    Business model of earning a living by losing auctions has come to an end.

  3. Reality says

    September 22, 2015 at 8:38 am

    Poor performance, and they’re purported to be one of the “shining lights” of the new gTLD game. Makes you wonder how many operators will go bust in the next few years.

  4. Michael Berkens says

    September 22, 2015 at 8:39 am

    Seb

    I wouldn’t say it has come to an end but is coming to an end there are still a few to go including possibly .web and .music

  5. Snoopy says

    September 22, 2015 at 8:39 am

    “Minds + Machines authorized a stock repurchase programme “that could see £15 Milliojn of shares bought back in the open market over the next 12 months”

    ////////////////////

    A desperate act. It is not worth 15 million pounds (half of their cash holdings) to try and prop up the stock price for 12 months. People would be wise to abandon ship during that period.

  6. Steve says

    September 22, 2015 at 12:00 pm

    You can go all in and “lose” an auction, if you have massive cash on hand. But with a diminishing kitty-kash, it’s going to be harder to pull this off with the other bidder(s)

  7. Rubens Kuhl says

    September 22, 2015 at 1:36 pm

    M+M applied to .eco as well. .eco prevailed CPE but M+M and other applicants are challenging that decision in accountability procedures; they are likely to loose and end up only spending in legal fees in getting nothing either settling private contention or selling domain names, but that is still unknown at this point.

  8. Groovy says

    September 22, 2015 at 6:52 pm

    I have several new gtld’s, one from M&M.

    Bottom line is, I transferred my single M&M domain to uniregistry.com where I feel safe and sound.

    I prefer not to name the domain but since the trademark was cancelled in the USA i feel it may have some worth at some time?

    Groovy

  9. Myers says

    October 9, 2015 at 2:28 pm

    gtlds are such crapolla. Why would anyone think otherwise?


Recent Articles

  • Sedo weekly domain name sales led by WalkingCane.com
  • Google has now received take down notices on 5M unique domain names
  • Sedo weekly domain name sales led by Hot7.com

Recent Comments

  • Mario on Sedo weekly domain name sales led by Relu.com
  • jose on Sedo weekly domain name sales led by Whiskey.com
  • jose on Sedo weekly domain name sales led by RTBet.com
  • Ryan M on Unstoppable Domains getting into the .com namespace
  • Brian on Sedo weekly domain name sales led by AiQ.com

Categories

Archives

Copyright ©2022 TheDomains.com — Published by Worldwide Media, Inc. — Site by Nuts and Bolts Media