Antony Van Couvering acknowledged a bit of M & M’s strategy today in a comment over at Domain Name Wire…
Someone wrote that TLDH’s company is worth about $60M. He commented that they are working with a few Geo TLDs in addition to their vertical ones. What isn’t addressed in any of this is whether they will get them. But it is likely a good strategy to have some geo tlds in their mix as a hedge against the possible failure to be awarded enough vertical generics.
Of course, they’ve been the most public of any portfolio applicant but his thinking is characteristically insightful.
Here are Antony’s comments…
TLDH is a public company, so I am constrained about how I can talk about valuation. But let me provide some comparables about a subset of TLDH’s portfolio — geographical new gTLDs.
New Zealand’s ccTLD, .co.nz, has 400,000 registrants in a population of 4 million. That’s 10%. Great Britain (.uk) has 10 million names in country of 60 million – 15%. Germany, .de, has 15 million names for a population of 90 million – 18%. You will find that throughout the developed world, ccTLDs have registration that correspond to between 10 – 20% of their populations. These sales have occurred over many years, but the bulk of them have occurred recently.
Now consider some of the new gTLDs in the developed world where governments have given TLDH their stamp of authority. Bavaria – .BAYERN – has a population of about 12.5M. North Rhein Westphalia – .NRW – about 18M. Greater London Area – 14M. Greater Miami – 5.5M. Greater Budapest, about 2M. Total more than 40M people.
We think city and regional TLDs, with government approval, are highly analogous to ccTLDs. With proper execution, a company with a geo-TLD market ought to be able to approach the 10% penetration achieved by ccTLDs within a few years (remember, current ccTLDs have done essentially zero marketing). You do the math.
It’s our view that our current share price and market valuation is more than supported solely by the developed-world geographical gTLDs whose governments have chosen to work with us. In addition, geographical gTLDs are not the only new gTLDs we’re applying for.
I hope that helps.
Antony Van Couvering
CEO, TLDH
