Afilias as many of you know are the Registry Operator for the .INFO, .MOBI and .PRO – They have also picked up some new GTLD’s including .Organic, .Black and are handling the backend for the likes of .Vegas and others.
There revenue were $77 Million in 2013 – That’s a decent chuck of change & operate with a margin of nearly 50% in 2013, Clearly there is profit to be made for all these new GTLD registry operators and looking at the listing yesterday investors must believe there is cash to be made.
We all I am sure have owned a .Info or .Mobi in the past and we all know the Rick Schwartz story with Flowers.Mobi – If not then read the REAL Story.
So what do you think of this listing?
Do you still own any .Info, .Mobi or .Pro – Are you investing in .Organic or .Black?
You can read more about Afilias below.
Afilias was founded in 2000 as a Delaware, United States, limited liability company by a consortium of leading registrars in the Domain Name industry for the purpose of operating Domain Name Registries. In 2001, the Company was reincorporated as a private limited company incorporated in Ireland. The first opportunity for Afilias to become a Registry Operator arose with the decision by ICANN to award to the Company the contract to act as Registry Operator for .INFO as a result of the first ICANN new gTLD process. The Company successfully applied to operate the .INFO TLD and was awarded a five-year initial contract in May 2001. Afilias has been the Registry Operator for .INFO since 2001 and there are approximately 5.5 million Domain Names under management in the .INFO Registry.
Since its incorporation in 2001, the Group has grown organically and through acquisitions. In 2002, the Group acquired Liberty Registry Management Services, Inc., a Toronto-based Registry Service Provider, to give it full control of its technical operations and enhance its service offering.
In 2003, the Group expanded its operations when it became the Registry Service Provider for the .ORG TLD under contract with PIR. The .ORG TLD is targeted at a diverse range of non-commercial organisations and is one of the largest TLDs on the Internet. There are over 10.4 million .ORG Domain Name registrations globally.
In 2004, the Company established a subsidiary in India, Afilias India Pvt. Ltd., to provide services to the National Internet Exchange of India (“NIXI”) in order to support the .IN ccTLD. Afilias India has remained the Registry Service Provider to .IN since 2004, and this represents the largest ccTLD serviced by the Afilias (measured by Domain Names under management).
In 2009, the Group established Afilias Resolution Services Limited to provide managed DNS services and DNS resolution services for gTLD and ccTLD Registries.
In 2010, the Group acquired mTLD Top Level Domain Limited, an Irish company trading as dotMobi and the Registry Operator of .MOBI. This subsidiary was subsequently renamed Afilias Technologies Limited (“ATL”). ATL also provides applications and services targeted at the mobile internet market, principally goMobi and DeviceAtlas. Prior to the acquisition of mTLD Top Level Domain Limited, the Group was the Registry Service Provider for .MOBI.
In 2011, the Group acquired Registry Services Corporation, a Nevada corporation and the Registry Operator of the .PRO gTLD.
As at 3 October 2014, the Group supported 37 TLDs, (28 gTLDs and 9 ccTLDs) with more than 20 million Domain Names under management.