23rd Sep 2014 10:15
LONDON (Alliance News) - CentralNic Group PLC Tuesday expressed confidence in meeting its commercial targets for the full-year, although it swung to a loss in the half-year to the end ofJune, primarily as a result of investments in its business and portfolio of top-level domain names.
The company posted a pretax loss of GBP599,000, swung from a pretax profit of GBP636,000, as revenue dropped to GBP1.6 million from GBP1.7 million, administrative expenses rose and it posted exceptional costs related to acquisitions, mostly as a result of investments in the business. Revenue in the previous period benefited from GBP390,000 in non-recurring licence and consultancy revenue.
The company said it had made investments of GBP1.9 million in cash and operating expenditure investments of GBP800,000 in the first-half to increase the scale and scope of its operations, including the acquisition of the trade and assets of domain retailer Internet.BS, and launching retail websites for .LONDON, .MENU, .LUXURY and .BUILD.
During the first-half the company launched its first five generic top-level domain names, .XYZ, .WIKI, .INK, .BAR and .REST, as well as a new second-level domain extension, .CO.COM.
It also won additional registry services contracts to distribute domains for the top-level domain names .WEBSITE, .PRESS, .SPACE and .HOST; three of these domains were launched into general availability last week.
It added 80 additional retailers to its distribution network in the first-half.
After the year-end the company invested USD1.6 million in Accent Media Ltd to acquire the new top-level domain .TICKETS. Accent has awarded CentralNic with a registry service contract for .TICKETS, which CentralNic said will provide it with on-going revenues and take its portfolio of uncontested top level domains to 30.
CentralNic said that at least 25 more new generic top-level domain names are scheduled for launch in the second-half of the year and in 2015.
The company said that it was pleased with the performance of its Registry business in the first-half against a background of delays in top-level domains that have hit the industry.
"To date, demand levels have fallen short of industry expectations, however CentralNic has performed strongly relative to the market with the new TLDs it has launched to date and is well positioned to take advantage of the growth in demand when it comes through," Chairmain John Swingewood said in a statement.
Despite this weaker demand, the company said its retail business is set to expand in the second-half with the launches of retail websites including domains.bar and domains.rest, and its Enterprise Channels business is expects to secure new contracts in the fourth quarter.
"The board is satisfied with the company's execution of its plan and believes the business is strongly positioned to take advantage of future opportunities in the industry," Swingewood added.
Shares in CentralNic were trading 9.8% lower at 55.00 pence per share Tuesday morning.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; [email protected]; @HanaSSAllNews
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