domains Here's What Successful Investors at China's eName Conference Had To Say

Over the weekend, an eName conference took place in China with some of the country's most respected entrepreneurs turning up. This meeting was, in part, celebrating the 10th anniversary of eName, one of China's most popular domain name registrars. In attendance were many domain name veterans, entrepreneurs, and brokers. Many of the most influential people in attendance were asked for their views on a number of topics relating to domain investment.

Thanks to the DN.com team, we have details of some of the advice and opinions that were given by some of the attendants.

Mike Cai, CEO of 265.com, said that now is the best time ever to invest in domain names. He also told us about his preferences in terms of the TLDs he will invest in: ”From the perspective of an investor, only .com and .cn domain names worth acquiring. I don’t think other TLDs are worthwhile. However, other TLDs can be transformed into commercial ventures."

Mike also revealed that he was a fan of developing domain names into valuable assets. In part of his interview, Mr. Cai said that "by developing the domain name into a website with intellectual property and a trademark, the value of the domain can increase beyond measure."

Michael Yao, CEO of 58.com and creator of the yiyu.com forum, also expressed his ideas during the meeting. According to Michael, "the Chinese domain market still has a lot of potential to new investors. Chinese attach great importance to things like phone numbers and car registration plate numbers, so much so that some of them are willing to pay a lot to get good ones." Mr. Yao believes that domain names are no different.

Michael holds the opinion that the domain industry is of great development potential, with faster liquidity available than automotive and real estate investments. He went on to say that in order to sustain his company 58.com, he once sold part of his portfolio. If he hadn't been able to do this, Michael doubts whether 58.com would still exist as it does today.

Eugene Li was also interviewed by eName. Mr. Li is the CEO of Zodiac, the winning applicant for the .wang TLD. “Wang” is the pinyin of Chinese word “网” meaning “network”. According to nTLDStats.com, .wang ranks behind .xyz and .top as the third largest new TLD in the world.

Eugene said in the interview that the market for .wang is majorly focused in China, as it is a symbol of Chinese network culture. As to the current domain market, he said, "There are many new TLDs in the domain market. I think all of us can figure out which new TLDs are favored in the market within the next two years. One phrase investors always say is 'don't put all your eggs in one basket', so I believe that investing in .cn or new TLD like .wang is a good choice."

Whilst these opinions were mainly targeted to the people in attendance, it's very interesting to hear successful entrepreneurs air their opinions on domain names as investments. Michael Yao's comparison to phone numbers or registration plates is especially interesting.

There is another Chinese conference on December 19th, 2015 in Shenzhen; it will the first "Chinese Domain Name Festival and Chinese Digital Assets Investment Summit."

Aside from these opinions, I've also been given the "Action Top 10 Chart" of domain sales, provided by eName. These sales have taken place very recently, all within the past four to six weeks. The sales prices below have been confirmed by staff within eName's parent company. The prices were originally in RMB (Chinese Yuan), and conversions into USD have been performed by me (accurate as of December 7th, 2015).

Thanks should go to @ChinaMobi for help with some of the points in this article, as well as Echo at DN.com for help with translation.