Sunday, April 29, 2012

Update on NNNNN.com Domain Registration Data

There appears to be some major movement in the NNNNN.com space (five digit .com domains).  There are only 100,000 of these domains, and since late last year they have been consistently bought out, meaning that they are basically impossible to hand-register.  Moreover, we have noted that the number of daily drops has been falling

But more interestingly, the percentage of recent registrants who have decided to re-register their domains has gone up sharply.
 
Last fall we looked at 250 random NNNNN.com domains to see how long they had been registered for, and this last week we ran the same test on 500 random NNNNN.com domains.  Here is what we have found.


The significant decrease in domains registered within the last year is indicative of a market where supply is tightening rapidly., and where new registrants are deciding to hold on to their investments.  Here is what we wrote last fall about registration rates for recent registrants:
The big open question is how many of the most recent registrants will hold their domains for longer than a year. If nearly all of them let their domains expire, there may not be a buyout this year of NNNNN.coms that sticks. On the other hand, if only 1/4 of recent registrants renew their domains, it is likely that the buyout will stick at some point in the near future, given the strong continued buying/registering interest in NNNNN.com's and the increasingly tightening supply (over 99.9% are currently registered). And the data from past years suggests that this is not unreasonable to expect.

I have been looking at drops over the past month or so and approximately 58 domains drop per day. This shows that approximately 1/3 of new registrants (registered in the past year) are renewing their domains, and 2/3 are letting them drop. While this might suggest weakness in the NNNNN.com market, it actually shows that supply is tightening very rapidly, and that last year's 10,000 domains renewed by first-time registrants will likely be repeated this year. This is an incredibly bullish projection for NNNNN.com domains at this point, and suggests the buyout will likely stick at some point in the next year as continued interest from new registrants and tightening supply make it virtually inevitable. In two or three years it is likely that NNNNN.com drops will be as rare as LLLL.com drops (about 10-20/day) or possibly even rarer.
It now seems that we were perhaps too conservative in our predictions, and that in fact we will get to the 10-20/day average drop amount much sooner than originally predicted.  We are running around 20-40/day right now it seems.   Plus, the percentage of new registrants that are renewing their domains is likely in the 70% range right now.  If this trend continues the entire float will be virtually locked up over the next year.

Why is this happening?  Probably a number of factors, including:

* the rise of 4.cn as a place to easily buy and sell numeric domains in the Chinese market,
* increasing internet penetration in China,
* the general increase in .com registrations,
* the recent all-time high sale of an NNNNN.com for $16,000 (41186.com),
* and the simple fact that the domains are all bought out.

Marchex (NASDAQ:$MCHX), which owns about 40% of these domains as US zip code domains, has extended its registrations through late 2013.  The "float" for five digit .com domains is very small, probably around 50,000 domains that are not owned by Marchex or already used as developped sites.  Compare that to about 400k for LLLL.com's (four letter .com domains), and you can see how tiny the market is for numerics.  When NNNNN.com holders decide whether to renew their domains, they see the float tightening and that process feeds on itself by encouraging existing registrants to renew.  The recent increase in the number of offers we have been getting (and the increases in prices thereof) doesn't hurt either...

Sunday, April 15, 2012

4 Digit Auction Results for 3.12-4.15 at 4.cn

Here are the last month's auction results from 4.cn for four digit domains.

36 NNNN.com's went on auction, with a total auction price of $73.5k, and a median auction price of $1,178. Below are the auction results for all four digit domains by domain name, price in RMB, and price in $USD.

8999.com 160000 $24,000
4939.com 35105 $5,266
5176.com 20500 $3,075
9796.com 18600 $2,790
0105.com 13400 $2,010
6908.com 10600 $1,590
2102.com 10600 $1,590
9759.com 9901 $1,485
8874.com 9300 $1,395
6503.com 9100 $1,365
5937.com 8900 $1,335
5524.com 8900 $1,335
7326.com 8100 $1,215
6231.com 8100 $1,215
6253.com 8000 $1,200
5683.com 8000 $1,200
9752.com 7900 $1,185
9572.com 7900 $1,185
7301.com 7800 $1,170
7031.com 7700 $1,155
7592.com 7600 $1,140
7417.com 7500 $1,125
1954.com 7500 $1,125
3062.com 7400 $1,110
7612.com 7100 $1,065
7201.com 7100 $1,065
6103.com 7100 $1,065
4772.com 7100 $1,065
2793.com 7100 $1,065
9037.com 7001 $1,050
9075.com 7000 $1,050
7059.com 7000 $1,050
0261.com 6700 $1,005
0181.com 6500 $975
4272.com 6200 $930
4378.com 5900 $885
2588.net 1950 $293
1722.cn 760 $114
5398.net 720 $108
7137.cn 640 $96
5663.net 615 $92
7867.net 560 $84
6280.cn 480 $72
0883.cc 420 $63
9282.net 400 $60
5937.net 300 $45
9478.cn 280 $42
8406.net 260 $39
4018.net 260 $39
1438.net 260 $39
4203.cn 241 $36
6945.cn 240 $36
4582.cn 240 $36
1497.net 220 $33
0254.net 220 $33
5288.cc 200 $30

NNNNN.com Auction Results from 4.cn 3.12-4.15

Here are the last month's auction results of five digit domains.

36 domains were auctioned for an average price of $90, and a median sale price of $36. Volume seems to be picking up a bit. A total of $3.2k was reached in auction results. Below are the auction results by domain, price in RMB, and price in $USD.

40086.com 5900 $885
14444.com 3601 $540
35553.com 1250 $188
34563.com 980 $147
09333.com 800 $120
88599.com 700 $105
60011.com 640 $96
85500.com 501 $75
78288.com 440 $66
03300.com 421 $63
75955.com 400 $60
01235.com 400 $60
51073.com 320 $48
33380.com 320 $48
00320.com 300 $45
91866.com 280 $42
85966.com 260 $39
83373.com 240 $36
64448.com 240 $36
59700.com 240 $36
54339.com 240 $36
51955.com 240 $36
06767.com 240 $36
95884.com 220 $33
81366.com 220 $33
53337.com 220 $33
52120.com 220 $33
35667.com 220 $33
33078.com 220 $33
21888.cn 220 $33
81873.com 200 $30
39918.com 200 $30
39389.com 200 $30
24377.com 200 $30
12639.com 200 $30
63888.cn 60 $9