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news Did GoDaddy Sell Nubia.com to Nubia for $2 Million?

NameSilo
Rumors are flying and Chinese news sites are reporting the sale of Nubia.com to mobile phone maker Nubia for US$2m. Some sources have speculated that GoDaddy was the seller.

According to the news release from mobile news site Qudong, Nubia.com (reported as "nubia.con" due to a typographical error) was owned by GoDaddy and the buyer is ZTE, owner of the Nubia brand, which paid US$2m for it.
在此之前,努比亚品牌nubia.cn和nubia.com.cn都属于努比亚公司所有,但是真正的域名nubia.con却被美国最大域名服务商Godaddy所拥有。Com为国际域名后缀,努比亚公司自然不会放过,根据最新消息,中兴公司已经斥资200万美元,购回了nubia.com域名,根据相关分析人士认为,这很有可能成为努比亚国际化的重要开始。

Sohu also mentioned GoDaddy was the registrant owner and further added that the purchase is to enable Nubia to go global:
而Nubia.com则被美国最大域名服务商Godaddy注册拥有。

The domain name is not resolving at the time of publishing, but a placeholder for the new website was briefly shown:
Nubia Smartphone

2016, wish we could tell you more
www.nubia.com
Coming soon!
ss2.jpg     ss.jpg

Techweb.com.cn disclosed the source of its news as Weibo user Shu Ma Feng Bao (nickname) who said that Nubia bought Nubia.com from a mysterious US citizen for $2 million.

C114.net commented that this purchase indicates that Nubia will be entering the global market in full force, in response to its earlier announcement of going fully global. The company has already established presence in Russia, India, and South East Asian countries.

eName gave more details, showing a Whois record of Nubia.com updated on December 23, 2015 with the new registrant being Nubia Technology and the registrant email address ending with @zte.com.cn. This shows that Nubia was the buyer and it is related to ZTE. Regarding the seller, eName also stated that the seller is a mysterious US citizen:
是从一个美国籍神秘人士手中收购的

I did some research with help from Eric Lyon, and this is what I've found:

Regarding the seller, it seems that GoDaddy was the registrar of Nubia.com for many years, from at least 2007 to 2014. During that time, the domain name was parked and its registration was kept private using GoDaddy's Domains By Proxy® service. From its historical Whois records, it's not possible to confirm whether GoDaddy owned the domain name.

Regarding the buyer, eName's Whois screenshot confirms that Nubia is the new owner. While Nubia's corporate site does not explain its relationship with ZTE, Baidu Baike (translation: "Baidu Encyclopedia") says that the company was founded in 2012 as a ZTE subsidiary but changed its name to Nubia in June of 2015.

Regarding the sale price, all 10+ Chinese sites that I checked reported the US$2m price tag, though no confirmation has come from Nubia yet.

According to its corporate site on Nubia.cn, the brand was created in 2012. In 2014, Nubia became the talk of town when President Jinping XI was seen using Nubia Z5 Mini to snap shots at a soccer game in Germany. The brand "Nubia" is the name of one of the birthplaces of ancient civilization with deep and rich culture. In this particular case, the company started with a non-Chinese name and then translated it phonetically to its Chinese brand 努比亚, which has no intrinsic meaning.

This expensive acquisition of a .com name indicates China's huge appetite for global brands built on the .com namespace. If you own a .com domain name, you may want to do your research to find out whether the same name is already being used by a Chinese startup.
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
Kassey-another GREAT post-thank you. One of the "China" names we own is BeijingBrands.com This gives us hope! Happy New Year!
 
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It's stories like this that have me shaking my head about Chinese only liking Chinese Chips. This domain has 3 different vowels in it out of a total of only 5 characters. But it was still bought by a Chinese company. What am I missing here?
 
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Great post.

@stub, it's a brand-able for technology that is intended to be global, hence it is not a CHIP which would just look completely weird to to any one not in China. Besides, good brandables need vowels :P
 
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They are not using the nubia brand name in China and don't use nubia.cn in China?
 
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Jesus, the seller has bigger you know what than me. I would have sold for a lot less. A lot, lot, lot less.

Kudos to the seller.
 
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Baidu, Alibaba, Lenova and so many top Chinese companies are using normal names just like westerners.

This CHIP thing - I am curious to know how it will end up.
 
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Jesus, the seller has bigger you know what than me. I would have sold for a lot less. A lot, lot, lot less.

Kudos to the seller.

They probably knew about the nubia brand ;)
 
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Baidu, Alibaba, Lenova and so many top Chinese companies are using normal names just like westerners.

This CHIP thing - I am curious to know how it will end up.
Indeed. I’ve seen far more “normal” domains in the wild in China than CHIPS. This whole CHIP boom that has been happening since summer is not really about buying up domains that will one day be purchased by end-users and developed.
They probably knew about the nubia brand ;)
Even if they knew, it still requires a lot of guts to hold out for 2 millionB-)
 
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Happy Nubia Year to Go Daddy!
 
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I have sixty 5-letter brandables. I don't have guts to quote this kind of amount.

Mind blowing if it is true.
 
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Indeed. I’ve seen far more “normal” domains in the wild in China than CHIPS. This whole CHIP boom that has been happening since summer is not really about buying up domains that will one day be purchased by end-users and developed.

Even if they knew, it still requires a lot of guts to hold out for 2 millionB-)

Maybe they didn't hold out for $2M. Maybe they were asking for $5M and folded for $2M :)
 
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I have sixty 5-letter brandables. I don't have guts to quote this kind of amount.

Mind blowing if it is true.

Which is why they almost certainly knew who the buyer was :)
 
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Also interesting is the Chinese news website C114.net ... but people keep filtering 4's because Chinese don't want them... Yeah right!
Tell that to 4.cn, such name brought them so much bad luck! But still people keep telling the same old stories, as if things didn't change.
 
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It's stories like this that have me shaking my head about Chinese only liking Chinese Chips. This domain has 3 different vowels in it out of a total of only 5 characters. But it was still bought by a Chinese company. What am I missing here?
Probably this one is simply better for a global brand, because it's easily pronounceable, brandable, short, easy to spell and remember. Even for Chinese I guess.
 
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Probably this one is simply better for a global brand, because it's easily pronounceable, brandable, short, easy to spell and remember. Even for Chinese I guess.

I would add one more thing. There are also a lot of brands operating in China with western looking and sounding websites, like ZTE with their Nubia Band. Probably not in the majority, but lots of major brands. If you have the equivalent .com, it's probable you are in for a good payday somewhere down the line.
 
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If the domain was parked, there was no trademark issues?
 
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Great post.

@stub, it's a brand-able for technology that is intended to be global, hence it is not a CHIP which would just look completely weird to to any one not in China. Besides, good brandables need vowels :P
Completely agreed. And Great post Kessey
 
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Anyway there it is a great name imho...and There are awesome CVCVV out there
 
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It's stories like this that have me shaking my head about Chinese only liking Chinese Chips. This domain has 3 different vowels in it out of a total of only 5 characters. But it was still bought by a Chinese company. What am I missing here?
I'm also puzzled by how some companies decide on a domain name to use. Therefore, I'm writing blog posts not as an expert (I am not) but as a student of domain investment, because I also want to know how domain names are used in China.
 
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They are not using the nubia brand name in China and don't use nubia.cn in China?
They do. Check it out. Compare the logo even if you can't understand Chinese.
 
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This CHIP thing - I am curious to know how it will end up.
Good question. Maybe I'll discuss it in a future blog post. Thanks.
 
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