CentralNic reports doubled profits in the first half of 2015
CentralNic, which is a technical partner for some of the top level domain applicants including DotConnectAfrica and a wholesale distributor for web domains, has reported in a latest press release that the company saw a 213% rise in bookings to £7.9mln in the six months to June 30, compared with £2.5mln in the corresponding period of 2014.
Also, Enterprise business, which had negligible revenue at 30 June last year, generated £1.1m of revenue from premium domain name trading, consulting, registry software licensing and managed service.
Commenting on the results, Ben Crawford, CEO of CentralNic, said:
“During 2014, CentralNic was transformed from a company with one line of business, domain name Wholesaling, to one with three distinct divisions in the domain name industry – Wholesale, Retail and Enterprise. In the first half of 2015, each of these divisions started to scale up, reflecting the emergence of changes in the industry favorable to CentralNic’s products, services and strategy.
“These promising results should be viewed as evidence of the three key factors propelling this company forward. Firstly as global demand builds for the new TLD domains supported by our Wholesale business, we continue to successfully launch new TLDs and secure additional TLD inventory. Secondly, the growth of our IBS Retail business revenues by 26% in six months demonstrates our ability to integrate and scale the businesses we have acquired. Thirdly, our Enterprise business transitioned from being pre-revenue a year ago to generating over £1m of revenue this half, demonstrating our ability to satisfy the domain requirements for corporate customers while also generating returns from our premium domain portfolio.
“Trading since the half year has remained in line with our expectations and, whilst mindful of the challenges in sustaining our growth strategy, the Board remains confident that the Group is well positioned to deliver its expectations for 2015 while continuing to create substantial shareholder value over the medium term.”
About CentralNic Group plc
CentralNic (LSE: CNIC) is a London-based AIM-listed company which earns revenues from the worldwide sales of internet domain names over a technology platform that it developed and manages. These domain names are sold on an annual subscription basis and paid for by customers upfront, making CentralNic a cash-generative business with annuity revenue streams. CentralNic comprises three business lines within the domain name industry. It operates a global wholesale network, supplying domain names to over 1,500 vendors in 77 countries, and is a leader in wholesaling for new Top-Level Domains – the new endings for domain names being introduced as alternatives to .com and .net. CentralNic is the exclusive wholesaler for all domains ending with .tickets, .website, .wiki, .bar, .feedback and .xyz, with more than 50 others under contract. CentralNic is also a leading global domain name retailer, with its retail websites including internetbs.net, buydomains.london and domain.luxury. Additionally, via its Enterprise programme, CentralNic supplies domain names (including high-value premium domain names), software and services directly to large corporations and governments.
