No .uk price hikes despite tumbling sales
Nominet said today that it has no plans to raise the price of .uk domains, even as registration volumes continue to sink and profits tumbled.
The registry said in its annual report that its net loss for the year ended March 31 was £6 million ($7.7 million), compared to £3.9 million ($5 million) in fiscal 2023, on revenue up £2.3 million ($3 million) to £56.4 million ($72.4 million).
The increase in revenue was due to its non-domains Cyber business, which was up by £2.7 million, offsetting a £400,000 decrease in domains revenue that was due to a 300,000 decline in domains under management.
Domains brought in £41.1 million at the top line during the period, but profit dropped from £14.8 million in 2023 to £9.8 million.
Nominet also lost a Protective DNS contract with the UK government during the year, which led to 40 layoffs and 19 employees being reassigned, but said the setbacks will not lead to price hikes.
“Even with the loss of the UK PDNS contract, and lower domain name renewals indicative of a maturing market, we see no immediate need to increase pricing, but we will continue to regularly review,” chair Andy Green and CEO Paul Fletcher said in the report.
.uk names currently cost £3.90 per year, with the last price increase happening in 2020.
Fletcher and CFO Carolyn Bedford both received hefty bonuses during the year, amounting to an extra £180,000 for Fletcher on top of his £304,500 base salary and an extra £94,557 for Bedford to add to her £190,000 base.
The company confirmed in its report that it plans to participate in the next new gTLD application round in 2026 as a back-end registry services provider, saying it expects the market to be very competitive.
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