Minds + Machines (LON:MMX) in a story published by proactiveinvestors.co.uk today saying “it is pleased with the revenues from its emerging portfolio of generic top level domains.”
“Around US$4 Million has been generated by the new domains M+M is involved with and, according to analysts, the AIM group’s share is around £300,000 for the first half of 2014, driven mostly from .London domain name registrations
M+M operates .London on behalf of London & Partners, the city’s promotional body.
“Industry stats indicate there have been around 93,000 registrations to date on M+M related domains.”
According to ntldstats.com, here are the top 5 extensions powered by M+M:
new gTLD Domains % Share
1. .london 48,641 52.26 %
2. .bayern 23,638 25.40 %
3. .kiwi 8,382 9.01 %
4. .beer 4,387 4.71 %
5. .gop 2,496 2.68 %
CEO Anthony van Couvering told Proactive Investors:
“We’ve had a couple of very good launches with .london and .bayern (Munich), and we are quite satisfied with the others,” .
“We’ve seen good growth and we’re pretty happy about that.”
“If you look at the history of .com you’ll see it didn’t achieve its eminence instantly.”
“We now have interests in ten active domains representing less than a third of the domains it has secured so far through the auction processes.”
“The wave of new generic top level domains started coming online in late 2013. More domains are due to launch in the coming months, and the competitive auction process is still ongoing for many others.”
“As an indicator of the revenue performance, the company revealed today that registrations onto domains within the M+M portfolio have generated revenues that are equivalent to 495,000 ‘.com’ registrations.”
To put that stat into context, M+M’s registry operations net about five times more per address than for an equivalent ‘.com’ address – the a wholesale price of registering a .com address is just shy of US$7.90.
“Therefore, a back of an envelope analysis suggests recurring annual revenues of about US$3.9mln from registrations on the ten M+M related domains launched so far.”
“In terms of M+M’s revenue share, broker N+1 Singer said the group’s sales for the first half of 2014 totalled £294,000.”
Tintin Stormont, the N+1 analyst, says increased activity across the broader market should drive a stepped increase in M+M’s revenues going forward, and this will be visible from the second half of 2014.
It is important to keep a close eye, not only on registration numbers, but also on the average value of the domain name within a TLD (top level domain), which will ultimately drive revenue and profits for the business,” Stormont said.
Stormont adds that it is still “early doors” in terms of the adoption curve for new domains, but the analyst remains buoyant on M+M’s prospects.
Focusing on the group’s pricing plan, M+M this morning told investors that its promotional marketing has avoided deep-discounting registration prices.
It said that whilst some new top-level domains have achieved large volumes of registrations by aggressive discounting, the domains it operates are “achieving their success at full price”.
The company also revealed the launch timetables for four of its upcoming domains – with ‘.casa’, ‘.work’, ‘.yoga’ and ‘.nrw’ slated for general availability in early 2015.
It added that new domains are expected to be launched on a regular basis throughout 2015, and at the same time the company continues to participate in private auctions for contested domains.”
Shareholders were less than thrilled with the story sending shares of M + M down over 6% in trading today.
Shares closed at 9.38p which is getting close to its 52 week low of 8.63p.
At 9.38p the market cap of the company is $77 million.
