VeriSign Inc. reported earnings after the markets closed.
VeriSign’s 1Q profit fell 21% from last year.
GAAP net income for the first quarter was $51.4 million or $0.28 per share, compared to $65.0 million or $0.34 per share for the year-ago quarter.
Revenue for the first quarter however rose 4% to $264.40 million from $253.56 million in the same quarter last year.
First quarter segment revenue for Internet Infrastructure and Identity Services, or the “core” businesses of Naming Services and Authentication Services, increased 4% to $263.49 million from $252.21 million a year earlier.
VeriSign added 8.1 million new domain name registrations, a record, in the first quarter.
However I’m nor sure how many following the stock picked up on VeriSign’s change of policy on March 18th in the treatment of .TV domains.
By dropping their renewal pricing on .TV domains, VeriSign added a hit to their 1Q gross numbers as domainers bought up .TV domains for the one time payments that had been up to that point renewable for a high annual fee.
This change of policy might hurt ongoing numbers in favor of an increased 1Q gross.
Moreover the question should be asked by the shareholder how many Millions did Verisign leave on the table when it decided to release all the .Tv domains on the open market as opposed to doing it by auctions?
As you know the Sedo.com .TV auction of registry owned domains generated $800K in sales.
What rescued business.tv from being sold for a fraction of the $100K auction price, by the registry on the .TV release? Only that Sedo had picked the domain for its auction prior to the release.
So what I’m saying is that had Verisign auctioned off the top 500 .tv domains instead of letting them be registered for just a few hundred to a few thousand dollars they would have added millions to their gross revenues.
Then again we still have d.tv and p.tv that the registry allowed to be hand registered for which they got $20 for.
Verisign has made so many bad business decisions related to .tv. Your right if they were smart they would of released there best 10-20% premiums at auction format and I believe that would of hit $10 Million + in sales that way, but personally I can’t complain as I was able to pick up some good ones for $21.95.
Thanks, Jim
WOW – I wish I was in the game many years ago.
I personally think that if the .tv domain was marketed properly, it would be stronger than the dot nets.
The time is now to merge tv media and marekting with the web and some big companies are getting the message and will do very very well with these domains.
again my two cents
I think .tv is a pittance to VeriSign, so it doesn’t really matter.
VeriSign has dotCOM and dotNet locked. Imagine they get a piece of every renewal forever. But they have a new trick up their sleeves. It was pitched to me today. I predict all of you who want to rank high on Google and be taken seriously in this business will buy it. And that will triple their revenues overnight. Watch my blog for the breaking news.
How did they sell that .1 domain name? 🙂
Versign make a fortune…. And now they will increase the prices for registry cost…..
@ Owen
Yes – I agree there are big changes coming.
Either one of two thing swill happen, as a ton, and I mean ton of .tvs will soon hit the market for sale. I have my suspicions that a Level 7 change is about to occur in the domain game.
All the dot coms and dot nets have virtually been spoken for and the less than 1% industry sell through rate, but record hand registrations from the top registrars show us two things…
First the King (dot com) needs to appoint a prince as all Kings live their life span and then a new name takes over the domain or kingdom.
Take last years top dot coms sales compared as a ratio to this years to date. Numbers do not lie. Generic is taking over brand. Loyalty is leaving both the supermarket shelf and the marketplace is asking for change.
That is the reason why Verisign is down profit but up hand registrations. There is no hot ticket so to speak… people are becoming less loyal to the dot com brand.
The big sales still and will continue to happen, but the frequency and average sales price is declining. Millions of dot coms will go unsold as the market becomes an oligoploy instead of a monoploy.
Personally I wish I had a premium dot tv name as this is one domain that could rival the current king as we merge video and media on the internet.
My two cents
sorry – oligopoly and monopoly… damn typos!!
.tv is still just CCtld and when Tuvalu would change to dictatorship they could decide whatever they want about their country extension.
Wall St. likes Versign numbers since the stock went up yesterday after the announcement. (wed. $ 26., Thurs. $ 27.50)
Many times the institutional investor “buys on the rumor and sells on the news”. But, not this time.
VRSN charts (5 day, 3 month, 1 yr) are exactly what investors like to see. However, the longtime investor in Verisign are still waiting for its recent high of $ 40. (May/June, 2008)
Before, you think the stock is a goldmine, the stock’s high was $ 253. in Feb. 2000. Then, the dotcom bust happened and the stock tumbled to a low of $ 5.00 (Sept, 2002)
Lets see how today goes.
Domain
Yes the market liked the news which was released by the company when it reported profits, however shareholder don’t know about the whole .tv deal and if they did they might not be so happy with the company once they realized that move cost them millions today and many more millions down the line.
Go knows as long as they hold the .com contract with guaranteed price increase they own a money printing press.