On December 16th and 17th, China’s second domain name festival was held in Chenzhou, a city in the south of Hunan province. I was kindly invited to attend this conference, but unfortunately couldn’t be there. However, the organizers, 190.com, have given me a full report of what happened at this important event in the Chinese domain name calendar. The Second Domain Name Festival, courtesy of 190.com.The conference was well attended by hundreds of local and foreign domain name investors, as well as financial experts and government officials; the attendance of government officials and financial experts is, I think, a sign of the growing realization within China that domain names and digital assets as a whole are becoming a legitimate source of investment. As with any domain name conference, there were several topics that were up for discussion including the future trends of the Chinese domain industry and potential new trading models for domain names. There were also wider talks about how China’s digital asset economy could be developed further than it currently is. Digital assets go further than domain names, but as is evident by the popularity of this domain festival, domain names will be a crucial part of China’s growing digital asset economy. During the domain festival, there were plenty of guests that delivered speeches to the gathered investors and financial experts. These included Toby Hall, the CEO of Minds & Machines; the owner and operator of a number of new domain name extensions, including .VIP, which has recently been approved by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to be hosted in China, along with .CLUB and .XYZ. According to 190.com, many of the speeches focused around the development of the domain name industry in the new economic climate in China. Alongside the multitude of discussions and speeches, investors in attendance had the opportunity to bid on thirty-four domain names in the auction event. Premium .COM’s including KD.com, KF.com and 986.com were included in the event, alongside Pig.com, 789.cn and more Here are the prices of each domain name sold at the auction: Domain NameSales Price (CNY)Sales Price (US Dollars)qianxian.com195,00028,000dk.com.cn190,00027,3439977.cn180,00025,904wxh.com375,00053,968qkj.com280,00040,296xtw.com385,00055,407cwh.com300,00043,174njf.com395,00056,846nuan.com640,00092,1050755.com255,00036,698pig.com3,960,000569,903ems.cn490,00070,518h.com.cn2,000,000287,829kd.com6,490,000934,00011.vip750,000107,936789.cn1,920,000276,31686.com.cn224,00032,236zhengrong.com350,00050,370jingshen.com202,00029,070986.com2,960,000425,990pk.cn1,250,000179,894kf.com6,470,000931,135niuren.com690,00099,301biaobai.com230,00033,100588.cn600,00086,349zhouheiya.com780,000112,254kuzi.com850,000122,328zhanhui.com530,00076,275caoliu.com590,00084,910ykf.com390,00056,12729.com.cn198,00028,495roudao.com50,0007,195chui.com475,00068,360The results of this auction shouldn’t be taken as fact. Last year, we reported on the inaugural domain festival, and included the auction results. After some investigation, we published a piece in February 2016 that confirmed many of the “sales” didn’t actually go through. Many auction events in China allow auction bidders to withdraw their winning bids after the auction has finished, in return for a small fee. In fact, 40% of the sales we reported from last year’s domain festival were confirmed as not being sold. Overall, attendees that I have spoken to have deemed the second domain festival to be a success. There looks to be a number of positive signs to show that the Chinese domain name industry is going to be a force for years to come. The digital economy is flourishing in China. -- We have included several pictures from the event, courtesy of 190.com.
Thanks James. Good info as usual. Curious to see .vip is working well on CHINA (11.vip) . Next gTLD ?
I wouldn't make investments based on this auction data... .VIP does have a following in China but that's likely due more to the very low registration prices ($3 at many registrars in China). The new hosting authorisation may give .VIP a bit of a bump temporarily, but I don't think that's going to be a focus for Chinese investments. .COM and .CN are the main focal points I think.
it won't be long before LL.com's have a minimum opening bid of $1m and NN.com's come to think of it and there will be plenty of bidders willing to pay that sort of price i also think that tech start ups will start using LL.com's as their web address
Thanks for this piece, James. I have to disagree with your assessment that dot-VIP's following has to do with low registration fees: It's undoubtedly based on the cultural importance of the word & concept of 'VIP' in China (in particular). The 'temporary bump' to which you refer is accurate as to registration volumes; but the MIIT approval has, for the foreseeable future, catapulted resale/retail prices. Keep in mind that this extension was only released in mid-May of 2016 -- and you already have names like 11.VIP selling for 107,000 USD: Add to that the sale of i.VIP (100,000 USD), pay.VIP (67,000 USD), car.VIP (35,000 USD), and 92.VIP (25,000 USD). Contrast that with a 84.net, which sold in 2011 for 100,000 USD; yet dot-NET has been around since the dawn of the Web, and is generally acknowledged to be among the 3 or 4 most important TLDs. So this result isn't just raw speculation, or an aberration, it's indicative of how important 'VIP' is to the whole Chinese mindset. I'll go out on a limb and make a prediction that by the end of 2017, everyone will be forced to acknowledge that dot-VIP was the stand-out gTLD of the year based on noteworthy sales and consistent blog/press coverage.
This time last year, you could almost guarantee $1m or more for an LL.com (in my experience). NN.com's typically sell for $1.5m and up, depending on the price.
While I would agree that low reg fees are generally attractive (...but $0.01-type promotions are deadly), I suspect that the volumes would still be 75% of the 500K+ if the standard prices were in the $30 range. That is hard to say definitively, though, given that 90% of registrations allegedly originated in China, and incomes there are generally much lower than in the West - so there's more price sensitivity there. I don't mind telling you that the vast majority of the dot-VIPs I purchased through GD were WAY above their standard reg fee of $19.xx. I went after some very choice names, and fully expected to pay premium prices for them, which I did (happily).
I'm sure there are tons of examples of investors placing their bets on the wrong horse/stock/domain name. Just like in the stock market, there will always be disastrous, individual investments in a portfolio, domain names are no different. They're simply an alternative asset class, no different than artwork, Yeezy shoes, or rare wines. In the case of wines, God only knows how many times an 'expert' purchased a 5-figure or 6-figure bottle at auction, only to later discover that the contents went bad years earlier, resulting in a total loss. Kind of like dot-MOBI. IMO, dot-VIP is new, and currently on a major upswing, similar to an Internet stock in the late '90s. It'll run in 2017/2018 in a big way, then either stabilize in value (if real businesses launch sites next year that leverage the dot-VIP extension), or drift back down to earth and join the long list of extensions with modest success.
Jim this is an exceptionally informative post for those of us that have "China" names. We happen to have shengriheka.com and .cn ( birthday card ) among others but is there any othere new extension you'd put your own money on in China besides .com and .cn? Thank you and Happy holidays.
One other question re .cn ( not sure if you'll know this answer) but do "western names' re English in the .cn extension have any value re diets.cn ( we dont own it just an example). Thank you
Hope so,I have more than 100 from 3 character, 4 letter, English words etc. Sadly dropped a lot a few years ago when there was no market and renewals were around $50!
Happy Holidays James-you're one of the few posters here on NP along with @Cynthia and @Kassey Lee that people can truly learn from so thank you.
