Photo Credit: Jon Roig/ Flickr.com

GoDaddy (NYSE: GDDY) recently reported its third-quarter results that failed to impress the market. The company remains focused on profitability, but the slowdown of the global economy has hurt its outlook for the current quarter and the year.

GoDaddy’s Financials

GoDaddy’s Q3 revenues grew 7% to $1.03 billion, falling short of the market’s forecast of $1.04 billion. Total bookings improved 5% to $1.1 billion. Non GAAP EPS of $0.63 was better than the market’s estimates of an EPS of $0.58.

By segment, the applications and commerce segment grew 12.6%. Revenue from its core platform segment increased by 4.9%.

For the fourth quarter, GoDaddy forecast revenues of $1.03-$1.05 billion, compared with the market’s estimates of $1.06 billion and an EPS of $0.65. For the year, it expects revenues of $4.08-$4.10 billion, compared with the market’s forecast of $4.11 billion and an EPS of $2.20.

GoDaddy’s Product Expansion

GoDaddy is mindful of the growing economic pressures and will continue to maintain its prudent cost structure by focusing on success-based marketing, monitoring headcount, and directing investments on the most important growth initiatives, including simplification and automation in the coming quarters. It is currently focusing on three key areas: first, driving commerce through presence; second, delivering for GoDaddy Pros; and third, innovating in domains.

To drive commerce across its offerings, GoDaddy simplified site creation through improved guidance on template selection. The new process makes it easier for customers to start building an online presence, which drives higher publish rates, an important indicator of customer success, and increased lifetime value. It integrated Commerce features within its solutions and enabled payments in all Websites + Marketing plans, including the free plan. Customers have access to Buy Buttons that is especially helpful for smaller businesses.

It recently added in-store point-of-sale and Online Store inventory sync with omnichannel reporting for merchants across all channels. Its customers can now see sales across their physical store, their online store, third-party marketplaces, and social media platforms. It has added Pay Buttons, integrated shipping labels, Apple Pay, and a new Commerce Plus plan for Websites + Marketing for businesses that need sales tax automation. It also expanded payments and commerce experience into WooCommerce for Managed WordPress, while also actively rolling out Managed WooCommerce Stores solution.

To grow GoDaddy Pros, the company launched free SSL on nearly all new web hosting plans in its major markets. Initial reports reveal that the addition is helping deliver increased term lengths and modest improvements in new units and bookings within the hosting business. Along with free SSL, it also improved server response time by rolling out infrastructure improvements across multiple hosting platforms.

Its third priority is innovation in Domains where it recently rolled out Payable Domains and released a new Auctions user experience that improves the buying experience with new bulk bidding and Buy-It-Now options, improved uptime, and a simpler and consistent design. It also launched a Domain Portfolio Manager for all customers giving them modern domain management capabilities aimed at increasing their efficiency and ease of use.

GoDaddy’s stock is trading at $73.95 with a market capitalization of $11.5 billion. It touched a 52-week high of $88.32 in April. GoDaddy had fallen to a year low of $64.65 in June.

More By This Author:

Cloud Stocks: Analysis Of Qualys’s Blue Hexagon Acquisition
Cloud Stocks: Analysis Of Bill.com’s Acquisition
Cloud Stocks: HubSpot Manages To Grow Customer Base Amidst Market Turmoil