gTLD registrations have peaked. With a rocky road ahead, how long until the crash?

[pfj]

Worrying stats from nTLDstats.com - for the last two weeks, new gTLD registrations have been almost static, and are actually starting to decline. Where previously we saw 10k, 15k, 20k new registrations per day, for a sustained period now registrations have ground to a halt. In the two weeks to date we should have expected to see an increase of almost 350,000 domains, but in fact we've seen a LOSS of 7,644.

This is something that I've expected to see happen for months as the inflated figures of various registries begin to adjust - i.e. the low/no-cost "puff" registrations are dropped. .XYZ tried to combat this earlier in the year with their huge promotional event, but you can only do a bargain basement sale once or twice before people lose confidence.

I see this as a sign that the market has reached saturation. Registries have failed to communicate the real benefits of new TLDs while businesses and individuals are failing to adopt them. The number of active sites using new gTLDs seems to be tiny compared to the number of domains registered. This causes a huge problem for investors as the whole gTLD sector risks becoming contaminated.

Christa Taylor/dotTBA's analysis of the first six months of new gTLD performance on Circle ID brought to light some stark realities: a huge number of registries are operating at a loss, and if registrations continue to fall away, the writing is on the wall for many of these registries. I'm confident that we will see a number of registries cease operations in the next 6 to 12 months.

Total number of gTLD registrations:

July 12th: 22,951,202
July 24th: 22,943,558
Increase/decrease = -7,644 (0.03% decrease)

Even with only a 1.5% increase over the period (which is less than similar periods) we should have seen around 345,000 domains being added, bringing the total to around 23,295,470 so this is a startling difference.

Comparing similar periods from previous months:

June 12th: 22,071,306
June 24th: 22,531,238
Increase/decrease = +459,932 (2.28% increase)

May 12th: 17,513,791
May 24th: 18,016,647
Increase/decrease = +502,856 (2.87% increase)

April 12th: 16,726,767
April 24th: 17,030,054
Increase/decrease: +303,287 (1.81% increase)

Compare Christmas/New Year 2015/2016 (which might be expected to be a quiet period)

December 22nd: 10,987,060
January 3rd: 11,241,742
Increase/decrease = +254,682 (2.31% increase)

Same period last year:

July 12th 2015: 6,570,729
July 24th 2015: 6,676,608
Increase/decrease: +105,879 (1.61% increase)

 

[TopShelf Domains]

Based on what evidence? They type fb.com youtube.com all day long but they will remember amazon.toys better than amazon.com?

If my son looked at the TV and saw amazon.TOYS is he going to be more excited or less excited than amazon.com. do you have a child?

 

[betthelot]

If my son looked at the TV and saw amazon.TOYS is he going to be more excited or less excited than amazon.com. do you have a child?

And the parents are going to think its spam and go to amazon.com. Thats why amazon will NEVER use it, confusion, loss of trust, loss of traffic and loss of sales.

 

[TopShelf Domains]

And the parents are going to think its spam and go to amazon.com. Thats why amazon will NEVER use it, confusion, loss of trust, loss of traffic and loss of sales.

I remember you, the one who gave nTLDs alot of bad threads then wanted to buy travel.agency.

I say history will repeat itself and you will be shunning nTLDs right before .Web launches, am I right?

 

[betthelot]

I remember you, the one who gave nTLDs alot of bad threads then wanted to buy travel.agency.

I say history will repeat itself and you will be shunning nTLDs right before .Web launches, am I right?

Probably

 

[dnk]

In India, Google allegedly bribes officials to torture, cause great pain , commit human rights abuses, on domain investors, link sellers, so it is difficult for them to register domain names

 

[pfj]

It's even worse than that because a large part of regs come from a few registries that market them very aggressively and give the domains away below $1 dollar.

9,635 Net Gain +23,882 (of which 10k are from .top alone)

These giveaways will not last forever because they are not profitable. Over 50% of registries are not profitable from what I have read.

I think it's probably much much higher than 50% - more like 80%. I would reckon any registry with fewer than 25,000 registrations - assuming they are operating with "regular" pricing ($5 - 20 dollars wholesale) is probably losing money, unless they are owned by one of the big groups. Operating costs, legal fees, marketing costs - all significant for registries.

I remember being astonished when I read that .tickets - which is a strong but very niche domain - apparently raised $1.6m from CentralNic for 12% of their business - valuing them at $13.5m before they'd even launched.

And now .web has closed out at auction for $135m... Absolute insanity! When you take those two valuations together it makes even less sense. Does .web only have ten times the potential of .tickets? Or, even crazier, does .tickets have even 1/10th of the universal meaning of .tickets?

If it's not Verisign then I can only assume that this ludicrously high figure was less "we can make money from this" and more "we must stop our competitors from having this whatever the cost".

If it is Verisign... How are they going to recover $135m? Let's say their wholesale pricing is $6 (slightly less than the $7.85 for .com) and registrars sell for $12. That's 22.5m domains (or pretty much the entire inventory of registered new TLDs so far) that they need to sell. Maybe they can do that in 5 years. Allowing for drops, they probably need to sell 5m domains a year. If anyone can, Verisign can. Maybe they will offer all .com owners the matching .web - like .uk did with .co.uk owners. I guess if only 10% of .com owners defensively register the matching .web domain then BOOM they've shifted 10m+

But how does that offer value to customers? Small businesses are going to be saying "I thought I'd secured my presence on the web, and now I'm told I need to buy the matching .web for my .com" - it devalues the whole idea of a domain name being an asset.

 

[dordomai]

If it is Verisign... How are they going to recover $135m?

Verisign won .web

they aren't going to recover them IMO. .net is worth $500 million

Verisign have $2 billion in cash mostly from their .net and .com empire.

It was a defensive purchase. Now the nGTLDs have little ammunition left. .web was the best generic string of the program. Non-generic strings did much worse than expected, I don't think they are an immediate threat to .com

Now .xyz, .gdn and .top are left to "challenge" .net and .com. Verisign management must be laughing thinking about it. They hold .cc and .web as alternative extensions. Now they dominate even the alt extension market.

 

[Landov]

And now .web has closed out at auction for $135m

Must have something to do with the emerging technologies, like Internet of things.

 

[BrandChimp]

For example, why would you own greenenergy.com if you could own green.energy. The "com" isn't needed anymore.

You mean you need to call your company Green Dot Energy for $55,000 and $15,000 renewal a year??

Just go With GreenEnergy no need to add to word DOT to your brand

 

[Mr Dobalina]

You mean you need to call your company Green Dot Energy for $55,000 and $15,000 renewal a year??

Just go With GreenEnergy no need to add to word DOT to your brand

With that logic there is no need to add Dot Com to any brand

 

[Canadian]

Just go With GreenEnergy no need to add to word DOT to your brand

DOTbay

 

[Fancy.domains]

Just sold my 22nd ngTLD in 2016 today.

People say it doesn't work, but...

 

[Landov]

Me too...

Good luck!

 

[betthelot]

Just sold my 22nd ngTLD in 2016 today.

Well Done. You have found a way to extract some value out of these, certainly better than I could do. Interesting to see the figures, holdings and returns but just selling 22 is impressive on its own

 

[Fancy.domains]

Well Done. You have found a way to extract some value out of these, certainly better than I could do. Interesting to see the figures, holdings and returns but just selling 22 is impressive on its own

Thanks,

Honestly I have spent A LOT of time to find my names, so my hourly income is not that impressive, I guess. And I have registered a lot of crap as well, especially the first year.

 

[Bram C.]

but just selling 22 is impressive on its own

It depends. If for example he has 500 new gTLDs (with let's say an average purchase price of $40 USD/TLD) and managed to sell 22 of those for mid $X,XXX then it's impressive as he made a good profit. If for example he has 500 new gTLDs (with the same average purchase price of $40 USD/TLD) and managed to sell 22 of those for low-mid $XXX then it's not impressive as he's (still) in the red.

But only @kohsamui can answer how many new gTLD domains he has, how much money and time he spent acquiring those and the amount of money he made (or lost) with them so far.

 

[betthelot]

It depends. If for example he has 500 new gTLDs (with let's say an average purchase price of $40 USD/TLD) and managed to sell 22 of those for mid $X,XXX then it's impressive as he made a good profit. If for example he has 500 new gTLDs (with the same average purchase price of $40 USD/TLD) and managed to sell 22 of those for low-mid $XXX then it's not impressive as he's (still) in the red.

But only @kohsamui can answer how many new gTLD domains he has, how much money and time he spent acquiring those and the amount of money he made (or lost) with them so far.

I agree but 22 sales is at least a start and you often fail at the beginning and adjust your model to what works. He may have found a formula that works in the future and had to pay to get there and therefore good luck to him

 

[RU]

I think ntlds have a great future...

 

[Landov]

City.bank vs city.com? Come on that is a no brainer

 

[Landov]

Just sold my 22nd ngTLD in 2016 today.

People say it doesn't work, but...

You give a Paradise?

 

[Fancy.domains]

It depends. If for example he has 500 new gTLDs (with let's say an average purchase price of $40 USD/TLD) and managed to sell 22 of those for mid $X,XXX then it's impressive as he made a good profit. If for example he has 500 new gTLDs (with the same average purchase price of $40 USD/TLD) and managed to sell 22 of those for low-mid $XXX then it's not impressive as he's (still) in the red.

But only @kohsamui can answer how many new gTLD domains he has, how much money and time he spent acquiring those and the amount of money he made (or lost) with them so far.

I have sold about 40 new gTLDs the last 12 months, which is about ten percent of the new gTLDs I have/had. My average sale price is mid $XXX. My average purchase price is about $20-22 per name.

My only 'formula' is to search everyday and to buy the ones I believe in, after checking some data.

 

[Fancy.domains]

You give a Paradise?

I give free beers to domainers visiting me, if they are nice.

 

[Bram C.]

I have sold about 40 new gTLDs the last 12 months, which is about ten percent of the new gTLDs I have/had. My average purchase price is about $20-22 per name.

So you have around 400 gTLDs and spent around $8K-$9K on them (I'm ignoring your time spent). And what's your average selling price for those 40 you sold? (if you wish to share of course)

 

[Fancy.domains]

So you have around 400 gTLDs and spent around $8K-$9K on them (I'm ignoring your time spent). And what's your average selling price for those 40 you sold? (if you wish to share of course)

Sorry, I forgot that. Just added it.

Ps. I have so many .XYZ etc, so the average renewal fees might be lower. Not sure about that.

 

[Raymond C]

average sale price is mid $XXX