domains Dubai and domain names

[Arpit131]

Dubai is the business hub of the middle east and is known for its luxury lifestyle, ultramodern architecture and nightlife.
Being in the domain industry, you just can't ignore the urls even if they are mentioned on buildings. Here are some of the my observations about domain names used in this part of the world, in the last two days that I have been here:

1) .COMs dominate the market here over .ae extension, which I thought would be more popular here. Pharmacy shops, hospitals and private practitioners such as dentist, gynaecologist, orthopaedics etc. mostly use .COMs, as I could see a lot of URLs on buildings and hospitals. So, there is an opportunity for geo domain investors to look into this market.

2) There are a lot of tourists here. Therefore, english is a well known language among common people, though they prefer to speak in Arabic and occasionally, Hindi. English keywords sounds totally fine for the businesses here.

3) Cab and tourism companies are plentiful and popular, and therefore, people owning rental domain names related to this geography have a good chance of getting a fantastic price if they approach the right buyer.

4) People are crazy about cars. You can literally find every high end cars on the streets of Dubai. Sports cars are very popular. A lot of car enthusiasts who visit Dubai go for renting high end cars. Therefore, if you have domain names like Exotic cars, or any other related names, you can get a good price for those, selling it to these service providers in Dubai.

5) There are exhibitions happening throughout the year in Dubai. Owning geo domain names in those category may also help fetch some good price.

6) People are filthy rich here. If they want something, they want it!! Any price, and they will take it. Money is not a matter.

Here are some of the domain names that I came across as advertisements and could recall :

a) During my research about the place, I came across the website VisitDubai.com ranked higher than Dubai.com.
b) Self storage provider TheBoxMe.com.
c) Emirates.com, in the flight.
d) MaiDubaiWater.com, the drinking water service.
e) OSN.com, the television entertainment.
f) TheDubaiMall.com, which is the largest mall in the world by total area.

So, I guess investing in .COM domain names related to this area makes sense. Although I haven't personally sold any domain name to someone from Dubai or Middle East for that matter, but I sure am going to give it a try. Perhaps, people who have had first hand experience buying or selling domain names from/to businesses in Middle East may share their experience and let us know what works and what not.


P.S. The brand name H & M, which is a well known brand, has a showroom in Dubai Mall. One of the glass walls of the shop reads www.H&M.com(I couldn't take the photograph). That makes me wonder if people are actually aware of the domain names. Even big brands such as these which uses HM.com, are making such mistakes('&' is not even a valid character for domain names).


Please share your views, advice, experiences and criticisms, if you have any, related to this.

Thanks!!

 

[Shams]

Dubai is a fabulous city indeed but if you are talking about domaining.NOPE ....
in case i'm unclear Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo

I run an IT company here since 2009 and living in Dubai Since 2005. the most people who have business here are asians and Small to mid level companies. Who don't invest in Domains. Please Don;t come up in comments with few sales which was bought by multinational companies if there's any.. I know the nature of the Businesses and People here. I flatten my shoes on streets in marketing. Just by Seeing Huge Buildings and Parks. you cannot assume you can make good sale here. Most local companies here prefer .AE extension and other companies just choose the name which is available. multinational companies who launch their new brands. They usually use suffix or prefix or .AE etc.

 

[Arpit131]

Arpit, when did you visit dubai? lol

Writing this from my hotel room in Dubai..Lol

 

[Abdullah Abdullah]

And one other thing that you might or might not have noticed is that many Arab or ME companies or people like the .NET more than the .COM.

I know many companies with .NETs than .COMs and I personally made further research on this issue and found out that normally in Arabic , when they are making ads or telling someone about their website they always use the word :
"" Net or Network " which in Arabic means " شبكة "

So you will hear a lot the following

"" موقنعا على شبكة اللانترنت "" Which if you translate literally means Our Website on Internet Network so since .NET is seen as such they always use it that

 

[pokainc]

Despite Dubai being the hub of awesomeness (Dubai was actually the reason I got slowly started domaining 10 years ago), there haven't been that many insane reported Dubai domain sales compared to all the hype about it... tried reaching out to Dubai companies with no success or when they did respond, didn't offer much.. hope it changes in the coming times

 

[TRY]

"4) People are crazy about cars. You can literally find every high end cars on the streets of Dubai. Sports cars are very popular. A lot of car enthusiasts who visit Dubai go for renting high end cars. Therefore, if you have domain names like Exotic cars, or any other related names, you can get a good price for those, selling it to these service providers in Dubai."

Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum has a large collection of high end vehicles. If he owned Highendvehicles.com he could showcase his collection and share with the world.

If you sell Highendvehicles.com to him for 1 million dollars I will give you $200,000 commission, I will also throw in middleeasternblog.com for free

 

[Haroon Basha]

Trying to sell any domain names in ME is worthless 99% of the time. I have tried before and saw that people or companies simply believe what they currently have or what they can easily reg cause the main believe here is if the company is Big , and even if you have bad domain name, then people will HAVE to learn it in a way or another

Your statement is 100% true. Being a Saudi Resident for than 20 years, I know domain names are not so popular here. If at all, the company needs one, they register any .com name by paying $ 10. Even short Arabic names are selling very cheap. You can sell one thousand domain name in a small country, like Vietnam, but here there are no buyers not even for 10 names daily.

 

[Finest]

I agree with @pokainc and @Shams. I'm running a startup based in Dubai and lots of the companies I work with (including really big and rich ones) are happy to work under domain names like CompanyNameSolutions-ME.Com / .ae / .me

Dubai and UAE is a huge market for lots of things, domain names is not one of them.

 

[noonoo1]

Andres from a past forum owns Dubai.mobi

It was rumored to have had genuine offers of $100k but never sold it.

I'm sure he's kicking himself now for not selling then.

I'm kicking myself as i bought a .mobi for $8,500 and am considering letting it drop now.

 

[Haroon Basha]

I have been a long resident of Arab countries, my advice to you all is do not invest in Dubai related domain names because there are no takers. Don't have the fancy that the Arab person will give you in thousands of dollars for a domain name. These are all wishful thinking and investing on wishful thinking is nothing but insanity.

 

[Ricardo M]

You forgot to mention the Real Estate business. With so many agencies and developments there is also a large interest in strong names. I own for example propertyinvestments(dot)ae
Although it isn't a .com address i still know this name is hot as people are raising there eyebrow when i tell that i own it. It's also for sale if you are interested

 

[Haroon Basha]

Arpit131 P.S. The brand name H & M, which is a well known brand, has a showroom in Dubai Mall. One of the glass walls of the shop reads www.H&M.com(I couldn't take the photograph).That makes me wonder if people are actually aware of the domain names. Even big brands such as these which uses HM.com, are making such mistakes('&' is not even a valid character for domain names).

After reading the above statement, do you think we can sell domain names in Dubai? It is a waste of time and money to invest in Dubai related domain names. And one who owns big businesses in Dubai are mostly Indians, and my experience is that it is very difficult to get a big price for domain names from Indians.

 

[Arpit131]

There haven't been that many insane reported Dubai domain sales compared to all the hype about it... tried reaching out to Dubai companies with no success or when they did respond, didn't offer much.. hope it changes in the coming times

I just checked namebio.com after you brought the topic up. There aren't many sales reported. The best I could see if DubaiEscorts.com for $46,000 and not many recent sales.
Thanks for sharing your experience.

Dubai is a fabulous city indeed but if you are talking about domaining.NOPE ....
in case i'm unclear Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Just by Seeing Huge Buildings and Parks. you cannot assume you can make good sale here. Most local companies here prefer .AE extension and other companies just choose the name which is available. multinational companies who launch their new brands. They usually use suffix or prefix or .AE etc.

That was a good insight. Thanks a lot. This is the purpose of the post; to know what others have experienced so far and invest accordingly; or rather not invest according to you!

Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum has a large collection of high end vehicles. If he owned Highendvehicles.com he could showcase his collection and share with the world.

If you sell Highendvehicles.com to him for 1 million dollars I will give you $200,000 commission, I will also throw in middleeasternblog.com for free

Haha..Thanks for the direct brokerage offer ;P
I think he would be more interested in Cars.com etc. looking at his fleet of cars!

'H & M' have promoted this brand since 1968, way before domain names were invented. Although the '&' is not allowed in domain names it was proberly to late to change their name either for contractual and/or branding reasons.

You can find similar oddities in other company names like Mercedes-Benz who have keep there '-' since 1926.

They didn't need to change the name. They already own HM.com. Just need to print it right on their showroom. Especially when you own such a fantastic name!

After reading the above statement, do you think we can sell domain names in Dubai? It is a waste of time and money to invest in Dubai related domain names. And one who owns big businesses in Dubai are mostly Indians, and my experience is that it is very difficult to get a big price for domain names from Indians.

That was the reason this point was mentioned to discuss. It was a big negative and made me reconsider. However, let's wait for someone to turn up with some success story related to this, maybe.

So far, the reviews about investments are mostly negative. Thanks for your input.

Btw, I know a lot of Indians who pay the right price for domain names, provided they are willing to buy the name that you are willing to sell! For people and businesses, anywhere across the globe, you need to pitch your products the right way and show the value behind those, to the users. Only then do they value it right!!

 

[Carol Carmel]

I don't have a lot of experience with after market domain names but, I do have a few registered, i.e., sheikhVIP.COM, DUBAIborn.com DubaiNature.com, and several other tourist related -dubaiVIPAir.com dubaiworldresorts.com, and a few cultural targeted names like arabpalacelife.com, sheikhcouture.com, dubaiCapital.com, etc.
I can tell you this much....the Arab professionals want absolutely NOTHING to do with any business transactions or associations with WOMEN. That's the first problem for me. Additionally, I have found that most flat out resent anyone that registers a dot com name that features any words used for example "Arab" "Dubai" "sheikh" etc. I am under the impression that the citizens of this area are self entitled to any use of domain names that describe the people, culture, commerce, or lifestyle. So if you own Dubai based dot com names....damn good luck to you selling them. I have ZILCH interest on names I KNOW are good, and I've had rude and indignant responses if any at all.

 

[Soofi]

I sold SmartHomeDubai.com for $200 last week

 

[Corporate]

Portfolio:

bets.ae
vids.ae
administrator.ae
admins.ae
member.ae
memberships.ae
mems.ae
pros.ae
hedge.ae
hedgefund.ae
hedgefunds.ae
exotics.ae
dealership.ae
dealerships.ae
dealers.ae
lambo.ae
lambos.ae
lamborghinis.ae
ferraris.ae
benz.ae
porsches.ae
bentleys.ae
bugattis.ae
drives.ae
driving.ae
handbag.ae
purses.ae
wallets.ae
visiting.ae
visits.ae
touring.ae
renting.ae
boating.ae
leases.ae
retreats.ae
airports.ae
beaches.ae
tourists.ae
wealthy.ae
lenders.ae
gasoline.ae
manage.ae

 

[doubleU]

P.S. The brand name H & M, which is a well known brand, has a showroom in Dubai Mall. One of the glass walls of the shop reads www.H&M.com(I couldn't take the photograph). That makes me wonder if people are actually aware of the domain names. Even big brands such as these which uses HM.com, are making such mistakes('&' is not even a valid character for domain names).

'H & M' have promoted this brand since 1968, way before domain names were invented. Although the '&' is not allowed in domain names it was proberly to late to change their name either for contractual and/or branding reasons.

You can find similar oddities in other company names like Mercedes-Benz who have keep there '-' since 1926.

 

[CamMK27]

ExoticCarsDubai.com - A nice website indeed.

Maybe I should try to sell them DubaiExoticCar .com lol. Hopefully I get to make some money and rent the cars for free on my trip to Dubai lol

 

[Shams]

It is not going to affect the new projects initiations. The Dubai Expo is coming in 2020 and the prices will rise again.

It long way to 2020. the current market situation is unstable. the market will be more affected by the end of 2017. when the VAT will apply in UAE and GCC countries but we also cannot neglect that dubai always rise with new boost as these crisis already hit once before in 2008. whatsoever the real estate and domaining are both different worlds.

 

[Abdullah Abdullah]

Trying to sell any domain names in ME is worthless 99% of the time. I have tried before and saw that people or companies simply believe what they currently have or what they can easily reg cause the main believe here is if the company is Big , and even if you have bad domain name, then people will HAVE to learn it in a way or another

 

[Brandables]

Well Dubai is just a city. Even if we expand the horizon, how many Arabic domains have you seen doing well. Apart from a few sales not even one word arabic domains are selling. I have seen many one word Really popular arabic domains for sale on sedo for about $1000-$2000

 

[Shams]

@Abdullah Abdullah Somewhat you are right and you have done excellent research. however The Arabic Word " شبكة " you are quoting, they usually use that for Mobile Network or Wifi Signal/ Network etc.

 

[Abdullah Abdullah]

@Abdullah Abdullah Somewhat you are right and you have done excellent research. however The Arabic Word " شبكة " you are quoting, they usually use that for Mobile Network or Wifi Signal/ Network etc.

exactly and they relate it to the internet. They always say the internet network

I hear it everyday as I live in an Arabic speaking country

search شبكة اللانترنت and you will see what I mean

 

[Shams]

exactly and they relate it to the internet. They always say the internet network

I hear it everyday as I live in an Arabic speaking country

search شبكة اللانترنت and you will see what I mean

I know Abdullah, What you mean. i quoted your point on .Net not on the language. unlike other countries UAE only have 10% nationals and 90% expats approximately and in those 10%, only 0.05-1% holds their own businesses except royal family. So, simple point is" They don't give a damn about domaining or extensions . "

 

[Haroon Basha]

The more money a person/company has the less likely they'll buy domain names.

The statement suits 100% on Middle Eastern countries.