MMX profitable as acquisition talks drag on
New gTLD registry Minds + Machines became profitable as an operating company for the first time in 2017, the company announced on Friday.
MMX saw billings of $10 million in the second half of the year, compared to $5.6 million in the first half, as domains under management grew 67% to 1.32 million.
Billings is a measure of sales, rather than the more formal measure of revenue for accounting purposes.
Renewals accounted for $5.6 million of billings in the year, which “for the first-time has exceeded fixed operating costs which have been reduced to below $5.5 million for 2017”.
The company’s bottom line will also boosted by $2.1 million due to MMX losing the .inc and .llc new gTLD auctions.
MMX also provided an update on its “strategic review”, a code word for the “acquisition by or sale/merger of the Company” that it announced last May.
The company said “the longevity of the discussions has been at times frustrating” but that it hopes to have something to announce by the time it reports its formal 2017 results in April.
MMX had originally hoped to have concluded these talks before last September.
There is an interesting post on CircleId entitled “Afilias to Buy Entire TLDs…”
It’s http://www.circleid.com/posts/20180127_afilias_to_buy_entire_tlds_at_namescon/ , but most TLD buyers are such low-ballers that unless someone is desperate, it might be better to hold to the position.
No hurry for a company to acquire MMX.
Next year, no more million dollars to be made from losing auctions.
MMX will once again be a largely unprofitable company and that will get worse every year in this sinking new gtlds market.
MMX will get slaughtered at the negotiation table then (that is if someone still wants to acquire a money losing business).