Cellphones.com sells for 4.2 Million! WOW!!!

[SKG]

"In the most extensive mainstream press article ever written about the domain business, Business 2.0 magazine said CellPhones.com is under contract for $4.2 million. Current owner Michael Bahlitzanakis, who is featured in the article, confirmed that to us, but the deal is not yet complete." Take from the dnjournal.

What a great sale!!!!

 

[gazzip]

This guy is from Greece, Crete(where I live), I can understand it from the name!
Cool sale, cool guy!

WOW - Lucky man ! a great name that will generate a fortune for the new owners when fully developed for many years to come.

Freecellphones(dot)com went for about $60,000 recently at snapnames, also a great name with potential IMO

 

[monRa]

that will generate a fortune for the new owners when fully developed for many years to come.

Maybe the buer will be a big company like Nokia, Sony, Philips...

 

[mole]

WOW - Lucky man ! a great name that will generate a fortune for the new owners when fully developed for many years to come.

Some people still think that a great name is an instant ticket to success or mindshare ala pets.com all over again.

Development that leads to mid-long success is very hard and risky - achievable, sustainable competitive advantage on the web is dog eat dog plus the dog's breakfast and vomit. Here this month, gone in 6.

Which is why domainers generally like to register or buy names, sit on them, and dream...

 

[gazzip]

Some people still think that a great name is an instant ticket to success or mindshare ala pets.com all over again.

Development that leads to mid-long success is very hard and risky - achievable, sustainable competitive advantage on the web is dog eat dog plus the dog's breakfast and vomit. Here this month, gone in 6.

Which is why domainers generally like to register or buy names, sit on them, and dream...

Agreed , a great name is not an instant ticket to success although with overture results (yes - just a guide ) of 2104 for cellphones.com it's an excellent place to start ! - the new buyer has obviously got the money to make this name work to their advantage - whether or not they do of course remains to be seen. It will be interesting to see if it's one of the big phone brands that are buying it to steer extra traffic to their existing products ?

Any guesses who's buying it ?

 

[Carbine18]

that is amazing. imagine what else you could buy with 4.2 million though.

 

[Monolith]

why to be so surprised.It is not just a Domain Name, it is a definition, that represent the core of a big business.
Imagine the company who is going to aquire this DN would have no knowledge about that name and they would call their site txzrg.com instead.

Now just try to figure out how much effort , time and money they would spend to make a so large audience to know they are instead something else.... wow that's hard.

How much worth the words Coca-cola?

I am happy for this high value for such name because it is another of the infinite confirmation I am having about my theories on the future of the Internet markets and particularly in the DN .
IMHO in the future the Domain Names that define the core of the business of a website will have the highest value on the market.

That represent the philosophy upon I build my Domain Names, if you think the same or you are just curious to learn more about the subject worth a visit to my website.

(I hope this is not out of the rules, if yes pleasejust let me know and I will cancell these lines.)

Excellent, excellent post! NP$ on the way!

 

[BurninDragon08]

That was definetly a good sale!
I mean $4.2million. I would be buying a 2 million dollar house in california, buying a ferrari, and saving the rest of the money.

 

[ThreeD]

A lot of money and definately a good sale Makes you wonder what cellphone.com would go for, probably a lot less!

As mole stated though, expensive domains don't equal success! You have to know how to run the site, optimize it for several promo categories and make right decisions at the right time. It's a magic game!

 

[JoshHendo]

Great sale. Maybe mobilephones.com could sell for something (mobile = what the rest of the world calls cell phones :P).

-Josh

 

[DomainSage]

Hi Folks,

4.2 million, whilst not a trivial amount, is not exactly going to break the bank for major companies. It would represent a fraction of what they spend on traditional global marketing and will probably generate more results.

To put this price in context :

Third-quarter ( 2005 ) Nokia group net sales are expected to be in the range of EUR 7.9 billion to EUR 8.2 billion, compared with EUR 7.1 billion in the third quarter 2004.

Now I am not suggesting that Nokia is the buyer, but if you could divert about 1/1,0000 th of the sales from your company to buy possibly the best domain available wouldn't you do it ?

All the best

Richard

 

[wasistdas]

Does it mean it is the second biggest sale ever for a single domain?

 

[gazzip]

Hi Folks,

4.2 million, whilst not a trivial amount, is not exactly going to break the bank for major companies. It would represent a fraction of what they spend on traditional global marketing and will probably generate more results.

To put this price in context :

Third-quarter ( 2005 ) Nokia group net sales are expected to be in the range of EUR 7.9 billion to EUR 8.2 billion, compared with EUR 7.1 billion in the third quarter 2004.

Now I am not suggesting that Nokia is the buyer, but if you could divert about 1/1,0000 th of the sales from your company to buy possibly the best domain available wouldn't you do it ?

All the best

Richard

Exactly - Does anyone know who the potential buyers are yet ?

 

[mahadeva]

Neon Network

Exactly - Does anyone know who the potential buyers are yet ?

The TM for cellphones.com is now owned by Neon Network. You can see it at www.neon.net

 

[SKG]

The following was taken from Business 2.0 "Bahlitzanakis, who works from his apartment in Queens, N.Y., owns fewer than 100 names, but at least one is a gem: Cellphones.com. The site -- a plain page with relevant links -- makes an average of $1,300 a day." This being the case, Bahilzanakis was making roughly $474,500 per year in revenue. So I think the price he got was good, since he is getting near ten years of revenue now. Plus phone technology is now changing so rapidly that we may not be using the word "cell phone" so readily as we do today. It is one of those descriptive pair of words that may not have lifetime longevity. Unlike, fish.com, where fish will always be fish.

 

[Genialnames]

The site -- a plain page with relevant links -- makes an average of $1,300 a day

he make it with this same page it is up?

I look at it, it has mostly about motorola cellphones, I am not expert in the field of celphones, but I bet people looking for cellphones would not find that site so interesting, and evenmore if it was me searching for cellphones, if I found this site I would be very irritated.
Those searching for just motorola I thing would go to motorola website, first.

PPC? ,
Hard to believe for me.
But who know?(Who know please tell.)

 

[MadAboutDomains]

A whole $4.2 Million spent... but its just parked? What a waste!

 

[gazzip]

The following was taken from Business 2.0 "Bahlitzanakis, who works from his apartment in Queens, N.Y., owns fewer than 100 names, but at least one is a gem: Cellphones.com. The site -- a plain page with relevant links -- makes an average of $1,300 a day." This being the case, Bahilzanakis was making roughly $474,500 per year in revenue. So I think the price he got was good, since he is getting near ten years of revenue now. Plus phone technology is now changing so rapidly that we may not be using the word "cell phone" so readily as we do today. It is one of those descriptive pair of words that may not have lifetime longevity. Unlike, fish.com, where fish will always be fish.

WOW - $474,500 per year in revenue - would'nt that be nice , never mind getting 4.2 Million for selling it !!

 

[JoshHendo]

WOW - $474,500 per year in revenue - would'nt that be nice , never mind getting 4.2 Million for selling it !!

I would have just kept it. 1000$+ a day is enough for me :P, and in 8 years he would have had the ammount sold for :P

-Josh

 

[gmac17]

I would have just kept it. 1000$+ a day is enough for me :P, and in 8 years he would have had the ammount sold for :P

Yeah, but if you invest that $4.2 million today and can earn 10%, you'd have $8.4 million in 7 years....or if you get 7% return you'd have $8.4 million in 10 years....