14.1 million domains and Ting has 5,000+ accounts: Tucows

Tucows continues to grow domain business while mobile phone service Ting gets bigger.

Tucows’ total domains under management hit 14.1 million at the end of last quarter, the firm disclosed on its investor conference call last evening.

That’s up 21% from the same time last year. Fresh registrations declined by 12%, which the firm blames on “general industry softness in North America and Europe and some one-time events”.

The ratio of transfers-in to transfers-out climbed to seven to one, a very strong number.

The firm sold seven figures worth of domains for the fourth quarter in a row. The firm also disclosed that it has regarding 1,000 domains it considers “gems”, and that it typically sells only “single digits” of these each quarter.

With regards to fresh top level domains, the firm stated that it pulled two of its six applications ahead of this summer’s “big reveal”.

Tucows CEO Elliot Noss states he doesn’t expect much fresh TLD revenue until 2014, especially for contested TLDs. “If we are lucky, we may start to see some of the uncontested attractive names like some of the geonames clip out in the second half of 2013,” he stated.

For the first time, Tucows drilled down into its numbers for Ting, its Mobile virtual network operator (MVNO).

Ting added approximately 3,000 fresh accounts and 4,500 devices during Q3. It now has more than 5,000 accounts and 8,000 devices.

It generated $900,000 in Q3 revenue from device sales.

Also, the firm states it spends well sound of $100 on client buyout. It believes most big mobile firms spend $350-$400 (not counting the cost of device subsidies), much of that on national advertising.

Ting, by contrast, focuses on action related marketing such as coupon codes.

Tucows will invest $1 million to $2 million in Ting this year and $1.5 million to $2.5 million in 2013.