Tucows had an earnings call after releasing its financial results for the third quarter of 2011.
Here are the highlights from the call:
Revenue grew by in excess of 18% year-over-year topping $25 million for the first time.
Cash provided by operating activities for the quarter was a healthy $1.6 million.
In OpenSRS domain services revenue and transaction volumes were each up 19% compared to the third quarter of last year.
We processed more than $2.1 million transactions in Q3, the first time we’ve exceeded that threshold and the third consecutive quarter we have surpassed the $2 million mark.
New registrations grew by 15% excluding the impact of the two customers that became registrars earlier this year.
Renewals were particularly strong increasing by 24% with the renewal rate continuing to hold steady at a level well above the industry average.
Total domains under management at the end of the quarter was up 16% from a year earlier to more than 11.7 million, the result of solid growth in transactions as well as the 400,000 domain names that were added with the acquisition of EPAG which was completed in July.
YummyNames, our domain portfolio group had an especially strong quarter with revenue up 46% from the same quarter last year and 38% from Q2 of this year.
Sales of individual names or Brandable and Gems grew 30% compared to the third quarter of last year with average selling price reaching an all time high.
This quarter we had a good number of individual name sales in excess of $10,000.
In addition, there was strong growth in expiry stream sales following our move to a new partner.
Parking revenue was also up marginally compared to the third quarter of last year turning around a long term trend of decline.
Gross margin from YummyNames increased $536,000 or 50% to $1.6 million from $1.1 million for the same period last year.
The increase primarily reflects the timing of portfolio domain name sales as well higher expiry stream sales following our move to a new partner.
On a percentage basis, gross margin for YummyNames increased to 90% from 86% for Q3 of last year.
Gross margin for Hover increased $96,000 or 13% to $863,000 from $767,000 for Q3 of last year primarily as a result of our ongoing success in attracting and retaining customers through our marketing and branding initiatives.
Cash and cash equivalents at the end of the third quarter of 2011 were $4.7 million down from $5.4 million at the end of the third quarter of last year and up slightly from $4.3 million at the end of the second quarter of this year.
