Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Numeric Domains Auction Results from 4.cn

Another week of strong numerics auction results over at 4.cn.

Some interesting things in this weeks results, first one is lots of 6 digit sales.  Sales of these domains really seems to be heating up.  Another thing to note is sky-high prices for NNNNN.com's with repeating digits.  84555.com has only three repeating digits and a "4" and it went for over $100, and AABBB pattern domains went for $495 and $615.  Another thing to note is that volume of five-digit and six-digit domains is starting to surpass NNNN.com's, which is not surprising given that the supply is much higher, but is a new trend, showing that buyers are likely finding it harder to acquire NNNN.com's and are turning their attention to longer number domains.

Here are the results:

8940.net    RMB¥220    $33
84555.com    RMB¥700    $105
33111.com    RMB¥3,300    $495
33222.com    RMB¥4,100    $615
4288.com    RMB¥49,500    $7,425
19.net    RMB¥65,000    $9,750
462.com.cn    RMB¥1,002    $150
071.com.cn    RMB¥1,460    $219
3367.net    RMB¥580    $87
3371.net    RMB¥440    $66
3775.net    RMB¥352    $53
887799.com    RMB¥440    $66
951951.com    RMB¥220    $33
656656.com    RMB¥220    $33
525525.com    RMB¥220    $33
826826.com    RMB¥220    $33
345678.com.cn    RMB¥540    $81
7111.com    RMB¥37,501    $5,625
871.cc    RMB¥660    $99
712.cc    RMB¥660    $99
376.cc    RMB¥660    $99
4287.com    RMB¥4,340    $651
3590.com    RMB¥7,600    $1,140
4367.com    RMB¥5,700    $855
995.cc    RMB¥1,150    $173
552.cc    RMB¥1,150    $173
633.cc    RMB¥1,150    $173
4830.NET    RMB¥200    $30
3025.NET    RMB¥302    $47
2589.NET    RMB¥240    $37
025025.com    RMB¥540    $81

Monday, September 12, 2011

97 Million .com Domains Registered!

As we keep the countdown flame going on the way to 100 million .com domains, yet another milestone has been reached.  As it currently stands, 97,086,942 domains are currently registered.  This represents an average registration increase of 16,675 per day since we last checked on August 29th.

Where is the continued growth coming from?  A lot of it is from China.

Here is a graph showing .com domain registration at two of China's top registrars, xinnetdns.com and hichina.com, over the last eight years:

Online Graphing
Graph maker

Internet penetration is still in its early stages in China, so there is a lot more room for growth in  Chinese .com registration, and especially in numeric domains, which are very popular in China.  The current near-buyout of five-digit .com domains (NNNNN.com's) and fast-increasing prices for four digit domains, which now fetch around $700-$1,000 per domain as a minimum, are an indication of what the future holds.

For those that have made investments or are considering investments in Chinese real estate ($TAO, $EJ, $CHLN, $XIN), you might consider an investment in "virtual" Chinese real estate to augment your portfolio.   Numeric domains rank high in the Alexa top Chinese websites, and Chinese internet users often prefer numbers to letters because of their cultural significance and their unfamiliarity with western characters.  And numeric domains are in short supply.  There are only 10,000 four digit .com domains, which are all registered, 100,000 five digit .com domains, which are more than 99.9% registered, and a million six digit .com domains, which, surprisingly enough, a significant chunk of are registered and some already sell for inflated prices.  This is the future of domain investing.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

NNNN.org Domains - In Depth Look

As of today there are 735 NNNN.org domains available for register, or 7.35% of the 10,000 total domains that exist. Recently there seems to have been an uptick in registration interest in these domains, as nearly 300 have been registered in the last few months.  The registration rate appears to be around 4/day on average, which suggests that in 6 months, if current trends continue, these domains may be all registered. 

Previously, we have shown that prices for numeric .org domains significantly trail prices for .com and .net, and the disparity is much greater than for letter domains like LLL.net or LLLL.com.  This suggests that even if there is a buyout, there may not be much impact on prices. 

Today we look at who owns NNNN.org domains and how long they have been registered for.  We looked at a small sample size of 50 random registered NNNN.org domains to get a sense of how long these domains have been registered.  Here are the results for years registered (between creation date and expiration date):

Online Graphing
Graph maker

This was very interesting, more than half of the registered NNNN.org domains we looked at were registered 8 years ago, and most of these were done by a company called Future Media Architects.  Future media, according to Wikipedia, is known for (1) its large portfolio of domain names, which is estimated to exceed 120,000, and (2) for its policy of never selling its domains.  FMA apparently registered a huge chunk of NNNN.org domains in the 1000-7500 number range, and apparently stopped there. 

Now for who owns NNNN.org domains, here were the results with the same data set:

Online Graphing
Graph maker

A lot of the Asian buyers (primarily Chinese) of NNNN.org domains have registered them in the last four years, and they make up nearly all of the recent registrants.  It is possible that they are buying these domains to complement a NNNN.com or .net domain they own, or perhaps are looking to buy a higher quality number in a .org extension when the .com version costs $1,000 if not much more.

Numeric Domain Auction Results from 4.cn

Here are some auction result numbers from the last week at the main Chinese domain auction site.  Lots of numeric sales, including 8 NNNNN.com's.  Lots more in the pipeline, including a surprising number of six-digit domains. 

88111.com    RMB¥3,502    $525
4365.com    RMB¥5,200    $780
53222.com    RMB¥780    $117
5671.net    RMB¥720    $108
0428.cn    RMB¥200    $30
6639.net    RMB¥520    $78
9932.net    RMB¥500    $75
858.cc    RMB¥4,100    $615
95277.com    RMB¥220    $33
7.tl    RMB¥4,000    $600
736.cc    RMB¥1,300    $195
77727.com    RMB¥1,050    $158
00252.com    RMB¥50    $8
88117.com    RMB¥240    $36
22765.com    RMB¥280    $42
99902.com    RMB¥320    $48
458.net    RMB¥4,600    $690
4008.net    RMB¥920    $138
982.cc    RMB¥1,000    $150
30.cc    RMB¥20,000    $3,000
067.cc    RMB¥800    $120