Netregistry has acquired the assets of PlanetDomain from Primus Telecommunications for over $8m. The acquisition was funded with cash and debt.

PlanetDomain is a top 5 Australian domain name and web hosting company serving over 100,000 domestic and international SME’s. The company is profitable and will continue to be managed by its current staff in Melbourne. Netregistry is the second largest Australian hosting company and has over 150,000 SME customers.

“Netregistry now dominates the Australian market in domain name registrations, with 27% market share for 2006”, says Larry Bloch, CEO Netregistry. “This acquisition leverages Netregistry’s world-renowned clustered infrastructure for small business application hosting, which will be used to expand the range of services available to PlanetDomain customers to include offerings in high growth Online Marketing and Advanced Hosting Services.”

Netregistry came 3rd globally in a recent international evaluation ranking the quality of customer service of the world’s 50 largest hosting companies.

The company’s philosophy is that excellent customer service greatly assists our 250,000 SME customers embrace online business. “Netregistry has direct access to vast numbers of SME businesses via fixed line, mobile, email and web property eyeballs. Our quality of service scored a perfect 5/5 in the recent HosTest.NET survey – one of only 3 companies globally to do so.”

“Our strategy is to acquire relationships with SME’s at the start of their online journey - buying a domain name. We then apply our proven skills in customer service to build trust and loyalty, gradually increasing the breadth of subscription services provided. All Netregistry services are delivered via our unified technology platform and billing system and supported by our Sydney based integrated customer service and support operation”, says Bloch.

“We are still at the early stage of a long wave of innovation in the provision of online services to businesses. Our growing market position places us well to dominate the provision of online business services to Australian SME’s for many years to come.”

Netregistry is pursuing further acquisitions of companies who supply hosted applications to large numbers of small businesses in Australia.

About Netregistry

Netregistry was established in 1997 and is a full service domain name, email, web hosting & e-commerce service provider, as well as providing internet marketing products like search engine submission and optimisation. Serving over 150,000 Australian businesses, the company has experienced strong growth by providing both keenly priced online services and exceptional customer service.