I've been doing some research on the global market share of registrars that offer .pro;
Network Solutions - 6.6%
DomainPeople - 0.5%
Hostway - 0.3%
If you add in Encirca and other small registrars you would get to about 7.5%. The next question is what % of end users are eligible to register a .pro. This is much harder to estimate. If you assume every registered company can use its license to register a .pro, the % is relatively high. If you say, you've got to be individually professionally qualified in traditional white collar jobs, the % is tiny. Either way, when you take 7.5% of it, the resulting market .pro is currently being offered to is very small. If we assume eligibility is, say 13%, it brings the end user base down to 1%.
In turn, maybe only 1% of that 1% would consider registering a .pro because of their reluctance to switch from .com, ccTLD's and other alternative extensions. So before you know it, you are a selling to only 1 in 10,000 end users.
RegistryPro cannot make .pro work or make money selling to 1 in 10,000 end users. They have to get the .pro registrar market share up from 7.5% to 75% and eligibility up from 13% to 100% by removing license restrictions and focusing on professional use. Then they have to market .pro and get the 1% of people who would consider switching up from 1% to 3%. That would increase the number of end users that can be actively sold to from 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 40.
If I was Lucas Roh at Hostway, I would offer Catherine Sigmar $10,000 for every 1% she increases .pro registrar market share by, $250,000 for getting rid of .pro license restrictions, and $1 for every extra .pro registered year on year. If you added that up, it would still be less than the RegistryPro losses he's funding every year.
