.SE sells off $3.2 million registrar biz
Swedish ccTLD registry IIS has sold off its registrar business, .SE Direkt, to a local registrar for an undisclosed sum.
The buyer is Loopia, a web hosting company focused on the Swedish market. It will take over in a couple of weeks.
IIS said that starting February 12, lasting a few days, its customers’ domains will be transferred to Loopia. No disruption is expected.
.SE Direkt had 121,836 .se domains under management and 87,852 customers at the last count. Its 2018 revenue was expected to be around $3.2 million.
Loopia has around 225,000 customers. It does not appear to be ICANN-accredited, but you don’t need to be to sell ccTLD names.
It might actually be good news for departing .SE Direkt customers. Loopia sells .se domains for SEK 149 ($16.50), whereas .SE Direkt’s list price is SEK 270 ($29).
IIS said the sale was finalized following a review of competing bids following its October announcement that the unit was up for sale.
The .SE Direkt business has been on the decline for the best part of a decade, apparently deliberately. It was created as part of .se’s transition to a two-tier registry-registrar model in 2009.
IIS had expected to divest the business earlier, but customers did not jump ship as fast as expected.
$3.2 million-a-year registrar up for grabs
Swedish ccTLD registry IIS is to sell off its registrar business, .SE Direkt, which is expected to bring in some $3.2 million in revenue this year.
The foundation said today that .SE Direkt has 121,836 .se domains under management and 87,852 customers, 66,819 of which are corporate.
That represents about 7% of the total .se market by domains.
IIS created the registrar in 2009 as part of its transition to a competitive two-tier sales model.
The registry explained in a note to press:
The idea was that it would work as a transition solution and that domain name holders would gradually transfer to other registrars. The number of customers has not fallen at the expected rate, but after 10 years it is on a level where IIS believes that the time is right to no longer continue with the registrar operations.
The buyer, which will have to be or become an IIS-accredited .se registrar, will get the customer base, domain database and two-year brand license, but none of the staff or other assets of the unit.
.SE Direkt sells .se names for 270 SEK ($30.27) per year.
Its revenue for 2017 was SEK 29.8 million ($3.3 million) and is expected to decline to SEK 28.3 million ($3.2 million) in 2018. The buyer would take over from the start of 2019.
There’s obviously a risk here that revenue is on a downward trajectory due to IIS’s aforementioned strategy of deliberately shedding customers.
Some effort to reverse this trend may be required by whoever takes over.
Stats on churn, usage, transfers and so on can be found in this IIS RFP (pdf).
IIS said that bids from interested parties must be submitted by October 17 and the foundation expects to select the winner by November 1.
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