The registry of the Swedish national domain, .SE, has decided to sell off the registrar business it’s had since 2009. The registrar, .SE Direkt, with expected 2018 revenue of $3.2 million, should be sold before November 1, 2018.
.SE Direkt has 121,836 .SE domains under management and 87,852 customers, 66,819 of them corporate. Overall, it controls about 7% of the total .se market by domains.
The national Swedish registry created the registrar in 2009 as part of its transition to a competitive two-tier sales model. The plan was for domain name holders to gradually transition to other registrars. The process took almost 10 years, and now the .SE domain registry believes it is time to close its registrar operations.
The potential buyer, which has to be or become an accredited .se registrar in the .SE domain, will get the customer base, domain database and two-year brand license, but none of the staff or other assets of the unit.
.SE Direkt sells .se names for 270 SEK ($30.27) per year. Its revenue for 2017 ticked down to SEK 29.8 million ($3.3 million). However, experts attribute the drop-off to the registry’s aforementioned policy of deliberately shedding customers.
Bids from interested parties must be submitted by October 17 and the .SE Registry expects to select the winner by November 1.
