Sedo posts 19.6% drop in revenue through three quarters.
Sedo today reported its results for the first three quarters of 2009, facing a decline in revenue to 34.1M EUR this year compared to 42.4M EUR in the same period last year. These numbers include both sales commissions and parking revenue.
But the good news is that things appear to be looking up. In its 9 month report (pdf), company management noted that the third quarter was better than the second this year, and usually the third quarter is weak for online advertising.
Another good sign: the number of domains sold in Q3 2009 was the best since at least 2007. That’s according to the company’s Q3 market study (pdf), which shows 9,928 domains sold last quarter.
Although last quarter’s sales weren’t an all time record, Sedo’s Heather DelCarpini told me that the global brokerage team set an all time record last quarter. Global brokerage sales involve an actual Sedo broker in the transaction as opposed to an online Sedo marketplace transaction.
The only number we don’t have from Sedo is its parking revenue thus far in 2009. Domain parking revenue far eclipses the revenue Sedo earns from sales commissions, and it surely made up a big chunk of Sedo’s revenue drop this year. Hopefully that’s turning the corner, too.
Matt says
Hmmm….quarter 3 is usually weak in online advertising SPENDING from what I know.
For direct navigation, it is the MOST trafficked quarter. If you compare November/December to May/June, you’ll see that May/June usually gets 60% of traffic compared to the winter months, at least in North America.
So I wouldn’t get so happy yet. I can confirm there will be 1 thing by end of the year or start of 2010 that will drop Sedo revenue by a small %.
Andrew Allemann says
Matt – web traffic doesn’t pick up until late Aug/September. Most of the third quarter is in the doldrums.
Cindy says
Nothing is turning the corner. The whole industry is crashing totally. It’ll only get worse from here.
That’s not negativity, that’s reality.
Matt says
Third quarter includes July, August, September.
Matt says
Well, yes December and January are the 2 best months actually. But these are 2 best months for products, and 2 worst months for finance.
I have a load of this data Andrew. And generally June and beginning of July is the worst months. Starting in August, things really pick up.
So August and September are 2 really good months.
Matt says
Actually, now that you mention it, 1 thing is definitely going to happen:
Sedo will be forced to stop URL forwarding. This is new policy in the works by Google and will need to be information really passed around the industry in order to get every1 to remove URL forwarding and put those domains on Name Server / IP forwarding instead.
Andrew, is it possible for you to create a post with that? This is a push by Google for all Google partners and probably the sooner it is announce the better. I am 95% sure it will happen.
If people don’t do it, that will accommodate for about 10-20% drop in parking revenue, and is the smaller of the 2. But anyway, if you post it would help spread the news.
Rob says
@Matt: good point
Andrew, you should definitely report on this to make people aware that Google must be stopped in their evil plans! the only reason G plans to do this is to exploit their monopoly position – because then people can’t split traffic between G + Y any more!!!