.in My recent trip to India - .IN Usage

[LeDomain]

Was in India last few weeks and as a true domainer/developer, ended up shooting pictures of .IN usage. This has been an interesting journey since 2005 when .IN was introduced to the public. The growth has been organic (to say the least) but my recent visit showed a substantial change from just a year ago. I was able to capture some newspaper ads and roadside banners in Chennai and Kochi .

Summary:
- .IN banners are easily spotted this time around in both cities
- Everyday newspaper ads with .in and somedays .in dominated the big banners
- .in had much better looking domains than .com
- An estimate would be 60:40 in favor of .in today, a few years ago it was 80:20 .com . Its headed to 80:20 .in very soon in my opinion
- English language keywords and acronyms are quite popular.
- Car companies and real estate business are biggest advertisers
- Some of India's largest companies continue to use .co.in and advertise them regularly
- There is also a need for .org.in for non profits
- Government and universities regularly advertise gov.in and ac.in websites
- The eyeballs that .in domains receive today are probably already huge considering India's population. More companies moving online and ecommerce picking up. The future of .in is clearly on an upward trend with bigger money flowing in. The next decade this is going to be the story.

Check out the attached powerpoint to view all the ads I captured.

There is nothing like Real Usage and Real Need in the Market for domains and that is the story my friends.

Note: I have been investor in .com since 1998 and .in/.co.in since 2005 .

 

[LeDomain]

Pizzahut.co.in

Jaguar.in

JustTickets.in (2 .ins around a .com)

Titan.co.in ( a Tata company)

Kaff.in

Nexterra.in

ChoiceDecors.in

iChef.in

Nestin.co.in (another Tata company)

Shareconomy.in

JSW.in

 

[LeDomain]

Volkswagen.co.in

Xone.in

ToyotaAltis.in

KidneyStonesClinic.in (generic keywords)

Datsun.co.in (yep coming back in India)

TalkMedia.in

Amazon.in (one of the biggest advertisers)

LakshmiCeramics.in

 

[LeDomain]

VGN.in

SOTC.in

NewIndia.in ( many gov related .in everyday)

Sathya.in

Bouteek.in

Shahs.co.in

 

[LeDomain]

HomeTown.in

RajasreeMotors.in

UrbanTouch.in

ThomasCook.in

Renault.co.in

Crafters.in

NFCFinance.in

GreenFlare.in

NucleusProperties.in

 

[LeDomain]

ManageSugar.in (India's big problem)

BSAUniv.ac.in (many ads everyday by universities using their ac.in websites)

Need for .org.in as well

SkodaOctavia.co.in

Even behind Autos (as called in India) StarHealth.in

Avis.co.in

Floripal.in

Even in Hindi ads, the web address in English

 

[LeDomain]

IFTE.co.in and AFTE.co.in

Migsun.in

TheCottage.in (example of much better .in domains than .coms )

WorldsofWonder.in

Qaleen.co.in (another example of .co.in being part of India's fabric for more than 12 yrs)

Giri.in (even for religious purposes)

Another Skoda ad using .co.in

RathnaFanHouse.co.in

 

[LeDomain]

NationalBioEntrepreneurship.in (generic keyword combos again)

GlobalLiving.in

Avigna.in

WoodWorldIndia.in

RajParis.in

Water park Kishkinta.in

SilverBullet.in

BasicEngineers.co.in

ShreeShara.in

RSPD.in

Kences.in

Wfitness.co.in (fitness for women)

SperoRealty.in

Cerebration.co.in

Kent.co.in

 

[LeDomain]

JewelOne.in

WallPaperWorld.co.in ( generic keywords everywhere)

MrCarCare.in

Voora.co.in

NaiduHall.co.in

At-Home.co.in

India's largest Corp (atleast one of the largest) ONGC.co.in

FriendsVideo.in

ShuttleCars.in

KFC.co.in

Really nice stores, SOCH.in

 

[LeDomain]

This thread is to show those who don't get a chance to see actual ads in India. Have no clue how anything else affects domain prices in India. From a pricing standpoint its still early stages - think 1997 .com prices when premium keywords were being sold for under $10k.

If your domain is worthwhile hang on to it, unless you are an excellent domain broker. End users should come knocking.

Personally am not an expert on triple premium etc. Not even sure if it affects end users in India. Great acronyms, Keywords are where I would focus, names that actually relate to products and services

 

[Embrand]

Thank you so much for these photos. They are really encouraging!

I do believe .in investors will finally be rewarded in the years to come.

 

[domainpundit]

Was in India last few weeks and as a true domainer/developer, ended up shooting pictures of .IN usage. This has been an interesting journey since 2005 when .IN was introduced to the public. The growth has been organic (to say the least) but my recent visit showed a substantial change from just a year ago. I was able to capture some newspaper ads and roadside banners in Chennai and Kochi .

Summary:
- .IN banners are easily spotted this time around in both cities
- Everyday newspaper ads with .in and somedays .in dominated the big banners
- .in had much better looking domains than .com
- An estimate would be 60:40 in favor of .in today, a few years ago it was 80:20 .com . Its headed to 80:20 .in very soon in my opinion
- English language keywords and acronyms are quite popular.
- Car companies and real estate business are biggest advertisers
- Some of India's largest companies continue to use .co.in and advertise them regularly
- There is also a need for .org.in for non profits
- Government and universities regularly advertise gov.in and ac.in websites
- The eyeballs that .in domains receive today are probably already huge considering India's population. More companies moving online and ecommerce picking up. The future of .in is clearly on an upward trend with bigger money flowing in. The next decade this is going to be the story.

Check out the attached powerpoint to view all the ads I captured.

There is nothing like Real Usage and Real Need in the Market for domains and that is the story my friends.

Note: I have been investor in .com since 1998 and .in/.co.in since 2005 .

Awesome post... thanks for sharing..

 

[wildomains]

Super effort there. I am building a portfolio of .in and .co.in names. I don't know how long it will be though before they sell. The fundamentals are in place...

 

[jideofor]

Great insights and thank you so much for your time.

 

[LeDomain]

Thanks all. One of the key things you will notice that domain names and ads in India are very similar to ads we see here in the US. This is why I believe Indian domain market will resemble the US domain market quite a bit - meaning focus on meaningful keywords - one word, two word domains will dominate the market.

Just saw an ad on CNN here in the US - http://www.worldfoodindia.in/ . Example of the how the government is promoting a lot of its programs on .in websites

Another point - a Billion dollar market in India is same as a billion dollar market in US, UK, Germany etc. So the domain name pricing would depend quite a bit on the market size and competitors vying for the keywords. Furniture market is a good example.
Furniture.com , Furniture.co.uk , Furniture.de , Furniture.ca , Furniture.in / Furniture.co.in

Since the number of great keywords for the Indian market is going to be limited, if they can't acquire .com version, the .in and .co.in are the next best alternatives. .co.uk , .de, .ca will all be great benchmarks for .in and .co.in domain pricing in my opinion. The big difference between India and UK, Germany, Canad and others is that India is growing at a tremendous rate and will be by most economic reports the 3rd largest economy (10 trillion dollars) by 2030 (twice as large as UK and Germany, Japan)

 

[Vinod R]

Thanks for the post. IN is expanding its user base. Many end users are using the .IN domains

 

[manpreet]

Great Post! Nice efforts bro SR, and great points there. Keep up the good work!

 

[saj110]

@LeDomain , Brilliant Post my friend, that is a real Eye Opener. Thank You for sharing this great post

 

[wot]

I think that by looking at the names in the photos that are using .in/ co.in,apart from international companies with tm rights, it's easy to see why it's so hard to sell quality keyword(s) .in/.co.in.
Indian endusers don't want to pay decent prices for quality names and that shows. Sold a lot of .in/ co.in over the years but mainly to resellers, very few end users. The last year or so I have been drastically reducing my domain portfolio in general but mainly .in/.co.in.
Maybe it will change,hope it does, but very little to indicate that it is happening in the near future.

 

[anunt]

i travel and live in India for 4 months every year and live in USA for 8 months.
When it's winter in the U.S., i goto India where the weather is beautiful...and when it gets hot in india, i come back to USA.

Anyways, what i have noticed in india is that the big companies are still using dot com while smaller companies are using made up dot .in domains.

Most companies will not pay up for premium .in domains.

Mobile phones are becoming very popular ...and they love the iphone.
They take selfies, play games, and text all day long.

I also noticed that Paytm is becoming very popular...
Paytm stands for pay thru mobile...it's like Apple Pay but much popular and very easy to use.

The technology and real estate in india is booming...

 

[LeDomain]

These are some large or fairly well known companies that use .in or .co.in

.IN
Amazon, Ebay ,Olx,Yahoo, LIC, Airtel, GoIndigo, Disney, Dish TV, Motorola, GoAir, Air India, ESPN, Vodafone, Eicher, UnitedSpirits, JSW, CanaraBank, FutureRetail, CoalIndia, Yesbank, DLF, Emamiltd, SyndicateBank, SunNetwork, GMRGroup, IOB, IndianBank, 3MIndia, ThomasCook, AndhraBank, CBSEAcademic, Redbus, Audi, BMW, AllahabadBank, ICMAI, TripAdvisor, Jaguar, Vogue, Bata, Femina, Starbucks, RoyalSundaram, BankofMaharashtra, BHEL, RBS

.CO.IN
Google, ICICI, Expedia, IRCTC, Sbi, Dominos, Indeed, PizzaHut, Nikon, BSNL, KFC, DHL, Adidas, Sony, Qualcomm, Titan, Tata, Boeing, Seimens, Visa, Citibank, Colgate, Rcom (Reliance), Britannia, NTPC, HDFCBank, PNBIndia, BankofBaroda, Crompton, UnionBankofIndia, BankofIndia, Tanishq, CentralBankofIndia , CESC, DeutscheBank, IDBIBank, PWC, NewIndia, Airbnb, DohaBank, ReadersDigest, KVB, Adecco, NovoNordisk, Webex, Craigslist, StandardCharteredTrade, Penguin, ZEISS, HUL, FederalBank, IngersollRand, Ricoh, SAIL, Koel, IBTimes, BNPParibas, DuPont, Loreal, Cargill, Garmin, Abbott, AVON, Praxair, Marubeni, ManpowerGroup, BEL, Renault, Panasonic, PepsicoIndia, Skoda-Auto, Volkswagen, Bridgestone, SuzukiMotorcycle, Heinz, Mercedes-Benz, Merck, Saint-Gobain, Datsun, Travelex, Canon, Phillips, Epson, Hyundai

 

[LeDomain]

There are few aspects of India's internet that are key to increased domain pricing and recognition of Category Killer domains. I do believe it is headed that way.

- Always ON High speed internet connections are still around 20 million . The large numbers that are reported (300 million) have access to internet but don't have unlimited access at high speeds (atlhough Reliance and others are now rolling them out). The same goes with Internet at Home, numbers will only grow dramatically from current levels

- e-Commerce in India is still at a very early stage, quite similar to late 90's here in the US. Amazon, Flipkart and many small business are obviously shaking things up and soon we can expect a hypercompetitive ecommerce market. Many exact matching domains (EMD) are being used - Tyres.in , Tyres.co.in, TyreExpress.co.in for example. When the big established business see increased competition, they will be looking at Category Killer domains more seriously.

- Google adwords would be a key indicator of trends. Increased competition will drive companies to increase bids on "keywords", which in turn will drive them to category killer domains or exact match domains

Again these are my opinions based on past history of internet growth in the US. India is just taking a bit longer to get there.

 

[Mr. Deleted]

- Some of India's largest companies continue to use .co.in and advertise them regularly

i have freebit.co.in, and i get about 12000 hits a month.

 

[Marshall]

This thread shows that research is your best friend before investing in anything and @LeDomain has done some great work here. Kudos! Keep it up!

 

[Furquan]

Great work and research, after looking at your .in and co.in, I think I should hold BuySellETH.co.in for little long.