IIS To Offload Their Registrar Business, .SE Direkt

The Swedish ccTLD manager IIS has decided to offload its registrar business, .SE Direkt.

.SE Direkt, which has almost 122,000 .se domain names under management with 87,000 customers (almost 67,000 corporate and 21,000 private individual customers), sells domain names but doesn’t offer additional services such as webhosting, which most registrars offer these days as a means of making money. The domain name registration business isn’t particularly lucrative when it comes to profitability.

Domain names registered through .SE Direkt currently cost SEK270 (€26) (SEK216 excl. VAT). The price increased from SEK255 to 270 as of 1 October 2017. .SE Direkt’s market share is 7%, which has increased from 6.8% in 2016. There are currently 1,768,495 domain names for the Swedish country code top level domain.

.SE Direkt commenced operations in 2009 when the business model with registrars was established. The idea was that it would act as a stopgap and that domain name registrants would gradually switch to other registrars. The number of customers has not since declined at the expected rate, but is now after ten years down at a level that makes IIS believe the timing is right to no longer continue with the registrar business.

The transfer includes domain names and customer agreements with .SE Direkt and the possibility of a license to use .SE Direkt’s trademark and/or domain name for up to two years.

To ensure that the buyer has the necessary experience and skills required, IIS places, among other things, the requirement that the purchaser should be, or will become, a registrar. Indicative bids with responses to the “Information for stakeholders” [pdf, Swedish only] must be submitted by 17 October 2018.

 

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