Here's What Happened At China's Second Domain Name Festival; With Full Auction Results

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.

 

So would .vip see the same registration numbers if the reg fee was $30 each?

 

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).

 

music.mobi 616,000 USD 2007-12-05 Sedo

 

Yes , you are right . But .cc sales are missing .

 

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.

 

Thanks

 

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.

 

No. Just .com and .cn. From what I hear, .cn could get a big push

 

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

 

Not that I'm aware of, but I could be wrong

 

Yes, in quite a few cases and gaining ground.

http://dnpric.es/?q=.cn

 

Thank you. The interesting thing about .cn is that they aren't even expensive.

 

Thanks James! Could you elaborate on your comment? "From what I hear, .cn could get a big push."

 

Thanks a lot James for the coverage.
Btw is pretty annoying that those sales can be canceled

 

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!

 

Thank you James

1 minute ago @ FH

TLDFestival.com

should i ask Godaddy or 190.com ?

 

good read, thanks.

 

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.

 

DomainNameFestival.com and DomainNameFest.com would be good for these events.