.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]

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.

 

[Mr. Deleted]

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

I was thinking of getting Amish.co.in to go along with Amish.co, but also to launch the Amish Coin turns it turns out that AuthorAmish.com now has that one. The guy is some famous Indian author.

 

[domaintrades]

Nice research!

According to Livemint.com the potential for Internet users in India is phenomenal.

Number of Internet users in India could cross 450 million by June: report
IAMAI-IMRB report says Urban India has close to 60% Internet penetration, reflecting a level of saturation, but there are a potential 750 million users in Rural India

 

[Kate]

Maybe, but the vast majority of people don't need a domain name, they just need an IP address to access the Internet. It's mostly businesses or bloggers and some tech-savvy persons who want a domain name. So the pool of potential end users is not 450 millions, it's much less than that.

 

[Isac]

Maybe, but the vast majority of people don't need a domain name, they just need an IP address to access the Internet. It's mostly businesses or bloggers and some tech-savvy persons who want a domain name. So the pool of potential end users is not 450 millions, it's much less than that.

You are right, here value of domain still don't exist. It might take some time

 

[Kate]

Well it can only go up
But even in developed countries, end users are reluctant to buy domain names on the aftermarket.
Of course, there has to be a healthy primary market (handregs) before a secondary market can take shape.

 

[imadoer]

Whats the dif between co.in and
.in

 

[Furquan]

I was thinking of getting Amish.co.in to go along with Amish.co, but also to launch the Amish Coin turns it turns out that AuthorAmish.com now has that one. The guy is some famous Indian author.

Look at my avatar, it's tell whole story!

 

[Isac]

Whats the dif between co.in and
.in

IN is a primary ccTLD, there are several second level domains which comes under it

• .co.in (for companies/business)

• .firm.in (for partnership firms)

• .net.in (for internet related services)

• .org.in (for non-profit organizations)

• .gen.in (for any general use)

• .ind.in (for individuals, personal blogs etc)

 

[Mr. Deleted]

Look at my avatar, it's tell whole story!

And?

 

[Kokoro]

Maybe, but the vast majority of people don't need a domain name, they just need an IP address to access the Internet. It's mostly businesses or bloggers and some tech-savvy persons who want a domain name. So the pool of potential end users is not 450 millions, it's much less than that.

Yes, but the reasoning here is:
More users online -> more e-commerce -> more companies responding by moving online -> more domains needed -> domain prices going up.

There is no reason to think that this online evolution will be looking different in India. It will perhaps take more time as the Indian GDP per capita is pretty low, but, on the other side, the country growth is very fast.

from Wiki:
According to a 2011 PricewaterhouseCoopers report, India's GDP at purchasing power parity could overtake that of the United States by 2045. During the next four decades, Indian GDP is expected to grow at an annualised average of 8%, making it potentially the world's fastest-growing major economy until 2050.

 

[LeDomain]

Whats the dif between co.in and
.in

This is confusing for many. Here is a little history:
- .co.in was introduced to corporations and trademark holders, a couple of years ahead of 2005, so many corporations ended up starting their online presence with .co.in domain names
- 2005 , .in and .co.in was opened to the public
.IN has become the go to extension but .co.in still enjoys a huge brand value and perception of being first and that many large corporations continue to use them and advertise them - Google being the prime example

So in short, ideal strategy would be to acquire both .in and .co.in versions to avoid brand confusion and traffic leak.

 

[Mr. Deleted]

This is confusing for many. Here is a little history:
- .co.in was introduced to corporations and trademark holders, a couple of years ahead of 2005, so many corporations ended up starting their online presence with .co.in domain names
- 2005 , .in and .co.in was opened to the public
.IN has become the go to extension but .co.in still enjoys a huge brand value and perception of being first and that many large corporations continue to use them and advertise them - Google being the prime example

So in short, ideal strategy would be to acquire both .in and .co.in versions to avoid brand confusion and traffic leak.

There is a reason for my freebit.co.in getting so many type ins, it is because of a huge website with the .in extension: freebitco.in. I just have one extra dot.

 

[LeDomain]

There is a reason for my freebit.co.in getting so many type ins, it is because of a huge website with the .in extension: freebitco.in. I just have one extra dot.

By the way, .co.in is also popular by itself for many cryptocoin websites these days.

 

[rhakim]

Great Post! Nice efforts , and great points there. Keep up the good work! Would be nice to have some info of what are the .IN prices that had been sold to end users.

 

[Commerce]

Fantastic research. I did note at least one of your images contained a gmail address with the company's .in url. I wish businesses would actually embrace the full power of their domains and tie their email to the url their company uses for a website domain (or at least something reflective of their own branding).