Verisign Launches MobileView to Drive Registrations
Verisign (NASDAQ:VRSN) announced the launch of MobileView last week – a product which makes it easy for businesses to convert their existing websites to mobile ready versions. Verisign generates almost all of its revenues from .com and .net domain registrations. It is the exclusive registrar for these domains and recently extended its contract with ICANN for another 6 years. It competes with other domain name registry providers like NeuStar, Employ Media, and Afilias for registry rights from ICANN. The company is also followed by investors in Internet security names like Symantec (NASDAQ:SYMC) and Intel’s Mcfee (NASDAQ:INTC) as well as Internet content delivery companies like Akamai (NASDAQ:AKAM).
It has a base of nearly 110 million .com and .net domains – the two most popular top level domains. Its domain business accounts for nearly 90% of our $36 price estimate for Verisign, which implies a 20% upside to the current market price.
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Verisign Hoping MobileView Will Boost .Com/.Net Registrations
With smartphone usage exploding across the globe, more users are accessing websites from their mobile phones. MobileView automatically creates a mobile friendly version of the existing website, which users can edit online if they wish to. The mobile website redirects to the same existing domain and doesn’t require any HTML editing.
Verisign will offer the service to its partners for free until December 2012 in an effort to drive adoption. The market share for .com and .net domains has been on the decline as other top level domains gain in popularity. With additional offerings like MobileView, Verisign aims to not only gain additional revenues from its existing users but also to attract more customers to its .com and .net offerings.