GoDaddy Is On A Shopping Spree
The global internet domain name provider GoDaddy (NYSE: GDDY) reported mixed results for the fourth quarter of the year. While revenues surpassed market expectations, its earnings failed to do so. But a strong outlook sent the stock soaring 11% in the after-hours trading session.
GoDaddy’s Financials
GoDaddy’s Q4 revenues grew 12% to $780.4 million, ahead of the market’s forecast of $777.2 million. Net income was $60.5 million, compared with $42.5 million a year ago. On an adjusted basis, EPS was $0.34 per share missing analyst estimates of $0.37.
By segment, revenues from the Domain segment grew 12% to $352.3 million driven by strong liquid domain aftermarket and renewals. Hosting and Presence revenues improved 8% to $292.8 million due to improved feature engagements, bookings, and appointments within the segment. Business Applications revenues grew 21% to $135.3 million.
Among other operating metrics, its customer base reached 19.3 million at the end of the quarter, up 4% q-o-q. The growth was driven by the increased adoption in emerging markets. Average revenue per user was up 7% from last year’s at $158. The market had forecast $157.8 in average revenue per user. Total bookings grew 14% to $833.6 million for the quarter.
GoDaddy ended the year with revenues growing 12% to $2.99 billion and an EPS of $0.76.
For the first quarter, GoDaddy forecast revenues of $795 million, compared with the market’s estimates of $789.1 billion. It expects to end 2020 with revenues of $3.32 billion, ahead of the market’s forecast of $3.31 billion.
GoDaddy’s Acquisitions
GoDaddy appears to be counting on growing through acquisitions. Earlier this year, it announced the acquisition of social content startup Over. South Africa-based Over is a visual communications tool that lets users create content from their phones. Set up in 2012 as a simple text over photos app for sharing goals and inspirational quotes, Over has transformed into a content creation tool that lets businesses, graphic designers, entrepreneurs, bloggers, vloggers, influencers, and other users create visually appealing designs through a simple interface. Users have access to a library of hand-curated, professionally designed templates and layout for quick customization that can be used over a mobile phone to create content for various social media platforms. The service has more than 1 million monthly active users who work on over 150,000 projects daily.
GoDaddy plans to leverage Over’s capabilities to strengthen its focus on supporting small businesses through its Websites + Marketing product. The companies were initially looking at establishing a partnership but realized that an acquisition was the right way forward. The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
Earlier this month, GoDaddy announced plans to acquire Uniregistry’s domain registrar. Grand Cayman-based Uniregistry is a domain names registration services company that supports people who register and sell domain names in bulk. Set up in 2014, Uniregistry provides domain name investors with access to specialized tools to register, manage and sell domains. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. As part of the acquisition, GoDaddy has purchased the marketplace and registrar from Uniregistry along with a library of over 350,000 domain names. Post the acquisition, GoDaddy will integrate Uniregistry’s marketplace into its own marketplace. Including this acquisition, GoDaddy has acquired more than 1 million domain names and it manages more than 78 million domain names for customers.
To cater to the larger enterprise customers, GoDaddy also announced the acquisition of Brandsight, a corporate domain name management and consulting firm. Unlike GoDaddy’s current SMB focus, Brandsight has focused on very large corporate clients. It offers tailored domain name management and brand protection services to its clientbase. Brandsight was set up 15 years ago to help companies manage the registration of their domain names. Since then, it has expanded to support registration and management of domains. Its tools provide enterprises with access to secure, intuitive and powerful domain management solutions. The financial and funding details for Brandsight are not publicly disclosed. GoDaddy did not share the details of the transaction as well. The acquisition will help GoDaddy get access to Brandsight’s corporate focused resources and tools.
Its stock is trading at $77.35 with a market capitalization of $13.5 billion. It touched a 52-week high of $82.30 in April last year. GoDaddy had fallen to a 52-week low of $59.93 in October last year.
Sramana Mitra is the founder of One Million by One Million (1M/1M), a global virtual incubator that aims to help one million entrepreneurs ...
more