Amazon $AMZN, Neustar $NSR, Verisign $VRSN, Q1 2016, April 28

Three important, but very different, companies, all of which offer domain name registry services, report Q1 2016 financial results after market close on Thursday, April 28, 2016; Earnings calls/webcasts: Amazon at 5 pm ET; and Neustar at 4:30 pm ET; and Verisign at 4:30 pm ET.

Amazon is the gorilla of the group (market capitalization $280.65B), with booming growth in its ecommerce (Prime, Amazon video, Amazon music, etc.) and technology (AWS a/k/a Amazon Web Services a/k/a Amazon Cloud) offerings. Neustar (market cap $1.35B) is trying to transform itself in view of its pending loss (2017?) of its profit-rich NPAC contracts, and finally, Verisign (market cap $9.66B) is transitioning along with ICANN--Verisign and ICANN are negotiating for a 10 year extension of its .COM registry agreement to run coincident with a new Root Zone Maintainer contract for Verisign (see notes after twitter feed below). After the brief profiles that follow, is a combined Twitter feed for all 3 stocks. This post will be updated as financial results information becomes available.

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Amazon $AMZN - amazon.com - ecommerce, cloud, technology, TLD registry services

•  Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) will hold a conference call to discuss its first quarter 2016 (Q1 2016) financial results on April 28, 2016, at 5:00 p.m. ET. Earnings Release.

•  The event will be webcast live, and the REPLAY audio and associated slides will be available for at least three months thereafter at www.amazon.com/ir.

•  Webcast Presentation: Click  here for webcast Thurday, April 28, 5:00 p.m. ET

•  Amazon.com Investor Relations: 2016 Annual Meeting of Shareholders: May 17, 2016 9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. Fremont Studios 155 N 35th St. Seattle, WA 98103 (source: Amazon.com Inc.)

Q1 2016 Results for Amazon.com Inc: Q1 EPS of $1.07 beats by $0.49. Revenue of $29.13B (+28.2% Y/Y) beats by $1.15B.  Guidance: AMZN expects Q2 revenue of $28B-$30.5B vs. a $28.33B consensus; expects Q2 operating income of $375M-$975M vs. $465M a year ago. Shares are UP +10% after hours. See: Amazon.com (AMZN) Q1 2016 Results - Earnings Call Transcript | Seeking Alpha

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Neustar $NSR - neustar.biz - technology and TLD registry services
•  Q1 2016 Neustar, Inc. Earnings Conference Call
•  Click here for webcast Thursday, April 28, 2016, 4:30 p.m. ET 
•  Webcast Presentation Event Details
•  Investor Relations neustar.biz/about-us/investor-relations  Earnings Release
•  Background - see on Domain Mondo: 

• Neustar $NSR Q4 2015 Financial Results ...
• Caveat Emptor: Neustar MarketShare Acquisition, 2016 $NSR Guidance

Q1 2016 Results for Neustar: Q1 EPS $1.06 misses by $0.12; Revenue of $287.29M (+14.3% Y/Y) misses by $1.22M. Total operating expense for the first quarter of 2016 increased 30% to $222.9 million from $171.9 million in the first quarter of 2015. This $51.0 million increase was attributable primarily to operational expenses associated with businesses acquired in 2015. Neustar updated its guidance to reflect a lower contribution from its recent acquisition of MarketShare, which was partially offset by stronger than expected organic Information Services revenue performance. All of the measures used by Neustar for guidance assume that it will remain the local number portability administrator for 2016. Shares are DOWN (11%) after hours. See: NeuStar (NSR) Lisa A. Hook on Q4 2015 Results - Earnings Call Transcript | Seeking Alpha

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Verisign $VRSN - verisign.com - TLD registry services, RZM, internet security services
• Verisign's Q1 2016 earnings call: Thursday, April 28, 2016, 4:30 p.m. ET.
• LIVE listen-only webcast of the earnings conference call https://investor.verisign.com.
• Audio archive of the call: https://investor.verisign.com/events.cfm.
• Verisign LIVE teleconference call accessible by direct dial at (888) 676-VRSN (U.S.) or (913) 312-1449 (international), conference ID: Verisign. The earnings news release distribution to the wire services at approximately 4:05 p.m., April 28, 2016, and available directly from the company's investor relations website: investor.verisign.com. On twitter: $VRSN / Verisign / @VERISIGN

Q1 2016 Results for Verisign: Q1 EPS $0.85 beats by $0.02; Revenue $281.87M (+9.1% Y/Y) beats by $3.37M. See: VeriSign (VRSN) D. James Bidzos on Q1 2016 Results - Earnings Call Transcript | Seeking Alpha

Financial Highlights:

• Verisign ended the first quarter with cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities of $1.9 billion, a decrease of $20 million from year-end 2015.
• Cash flow from operations was $144 million for the first quarter of 2016, compared with $133 million for the same quarter in 2015.
• Deferred revenues on March 31, 2016, totaled $992 million, an increase of $31 million from year-end 2015.
• During the first quarter, Verisign repurchased 1.8 million shares of its common stock for $150 million. At March 31, 2016, $916 million remained available and authorized under the current share repurchase program which has no expiration.
• For purposes of calculating diluted EPS, the first quarter diluted share count included 21.1 million shares related to subordinated convertible debentures, compared with 15.8 million shares for the same quarter in 2015. These represent diluted shares and not shares that have been issued.

Business Highlights:

• Verisign Registry Services added 2.65 million net new names during the first quarter, ending with 142.5 million .com and .net domain names in the domain name base, which represents a 7.1 percent increase over the base at the end of the first quarter in 2015.
• In the first quarter, Verisign processed 10.0 million new domain name registrations for .com and .net, as compared to 8.7 million for the same quarter in 2015.
• The final .com and .net renewal rate for the fourth quarter of 2015 was 73.3 percent compared with 72.5 percent for the same quarter in 2014. Renewal rates are not fully measurable until 45 days after the end of the quarter.

Tweets about $AMZN OR $NSR OR $VRSN:
Tweets about $AMZN OR $NSR OR $VRSN

More about Verisign
VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ: VRSN), is registry operator for .COM and .NET and other top-level domain names (TLDs), as well as Internet security services provider and Internet Root Zone Maintainer and Root Zone server operator. Verisign's Security Services include intelligence-driven Distributed Denial of Service Protection, iDefense Security Intelligence and Managed DNS. See also Zone Files For Top-Level Domains (TLDs) - Verisign:

.COM and .NET Domain Name Base, April 27, 2016:
.com 126,904,150*
.net     15,876,458
Total 142,780,608 *The active zone as of 04/27/2016 contains 125,937,371 .com domain names and 15,673,857 .net domains totaling 141,611,228 domain names. 

Root Zone Status - Verisign: "...In preparation for the implementation phase of NTIA’s announced intent to transition out of key Internet domain name functions, NTIA asked Verisign and ICANN to develop a proposal outlining a technical plan and testing regime for phasing out NTIA’s administrative role associated with root zone management in a manner that maintains the security, stability and resiliency of the DNS. In conjunction with that proposal, Verisign and ICANN are jointly testing and proving a new version of the RZMS that performs all of the same functions as the current RZMS, but uses a modified workflow which omits the NTIA authorization steps. The period of testing, referred to as "parallel operations”, will be used to prove that the new RZMS produces identical matching output for every zone produced by the current RZMS..." see on the Verisign blog: Network Infrastructure, Cyber Security and Domain News from Verisign | Between the Dots and on the ICANN blog: A Progress Update: Ensuring the Security, Stability and Resiliency of Root Zone Maintenance - ICANN: "... One of the tasks that must be completed is for ICANN and Verisign to enter into a Root Zone Maintainer Agreement (RZMA). Another is to extend the .com Registry Agreement to run for the same term as the RZMA, which ICANN and Verisign believe enhances the security, stability and resiliency of the root zone infrastructure ..." (March 16, 2016)(emphasis added).

See also on Domain Mondo:

• Verisign $VRSN Q4 2015 Financial Results, LIVE Webcast Replay
• Verisign Form 10-K for 2015, Domain Name Industry 'Must Read'

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DISCLAIMER

ICANN CTO comments on "Stark-Raving-Greedy" Verisign

IANA Stewardship Transition Will "Impact on the Internet" says ICANN CTO:

On Monday, January 19, 2014, ICANN CTO Dave Conrad, speaking only for himself, dropped a bombshell comment on the public ICANN CWG-Stewardship mailing (email) list--excerpt below:

".... In all the discussions I've seen on the transition of the stewardship of the IANA Functions contract related to the Root Zone Management function, there has been precious little discussion of the actual root zone management processes despite the fact that, given NTIA will no longer be involved, those processes MUST change and those changes will have DIRECT operational impact on the Internet. I'll admit to a bit of surprise about this... I'll admit to not following the ICANN Accountability stuff all that closely, I'm just a technical person (or try to be) so much of that discussion is beyond me. However, my understanding (which is probably wrong) is that ultimately, Verisign, being a for-profit company incorporated in a state that is (perhaps unfairly) known to have the least stringent corporate responsibility requirements, has a fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders to make a profit. ICANN, being a California public benefit not-for-profit, has a fiduciary responsibility to serve the public interest as interpreted by the State of California. While a for-profit like Verisign being "stark-raving-greedy" is arguably appropriate (at least according to
the laws of the state of Delaware), I have some skepticism that State of California would see an ICANN that was "stark-raving-greedy" as being in the public interest... "--Dave Conrad, ICANN CTO, "but speaking only for" himself, (emphasis added)

Domain Mondo has no idea what Mr. Conrad's reference to Verisign being "stark-raving-greedy" has to do with the IANA Functions or Internet Root Zone Management since it is well known that Verisign receives no fee for performing its services as Root Zone Maintainer. Is he implying that Verisign has started demanding "stark-raving-greedy" fees for performing its services as the Root Zone Maintainer now, or in the future? Also, the Chief Technology Officer of ICANN, speaking only for himself, did not elaborate on exactly how the Internet root zone management processes "MUST change" nor how those changes will have DIRECT operational impact on the Internet. Stay tuned--things are getting interesting in the IANA Stewardship Transition process!

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Solicitation: Internet Root Zone Key Signing Key Rollover Plan Design Team

ICANN has announced a "Solicitation of Statement of Interest for Membership in the Root Zone Key Signing Key Rollover Plan Design Team:"

ICANN, as the IANA functions operator, in cooperation with Verisign as the Root Zone Maintainer and the National Telecommunications Information Administration (NTIA) as the Root Zone Administrator, together known as the Root Zone Management (RZM) partners, seek to develop a plan for rolling the root zone keysigning key (KSK). The KSK is used to sign the root zone zone-signing key (ZSK), which in turn is used to DNSSEC-sign the Internet’s root zone. 

The Root Zone Partners are soliciting five to seven volunteers from the community to participate in
a Design Team to develop the Root Zone KSK Rollover Plan (“The Plan”). These volunteers along with the RZM partners will form the Design Team to develop The Plan. 

For further information: https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/ksk-soi-11dec14-en.pdf

Also see: NTIA’s Role in Root Zone Management (pdf)

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