.in Reasons behind MASSIVE GROWTH in the .IN extension

[Truekumar]

Now before I start to give my opinion on the Indian extension, I wish to convey the fact that I am definitely NOT trying to hype up the .IN scene to propagate my own portfolio or investments, which many people often believe when domainers make positive comments on certain extensions. Although I must say that I am the owner of a fair few nice .IN names, I feel that I am quite behind with .IN and therefore playing catch up on pretty much a daily basis now through hand regs and buying on reseller market, trying to build up a decent portfolio of .in at reasonable prices, before its too late. Many strong key (and clever) players have been in the .IN game for many many years, secretly trading amongst themselves and waiting for the explosion that is about to occur in the next few months.

I started investing in .IN a few years back but it has only been over the last couple of years, that I have realized the true potential in this amazing extension. Many years ago, I had initially thought that .in was only good for domain hacks, with quite a few companies all over the globe buying .in names primarily for only that purpose ( many still do) and not even thinking about the traffic from India but I only fully realized a couple of years ago that I was very wrong about .in and wished that I had got in much earlier and I think that the Chinese are also realising that now too.

I am sure you are all aware of the recent rapid momentum with NNN.ins & LLL.ins which are showing growth at an unprecedented speed, prices increasing on a daily basis. This shows the potential of .IN and also a precursor of what is going to happen in the coming months. And in a matter of speaking, I guess it is already starting to happen right now as we speak, with more and more end users buying .Ins and interesting being sparked all over India and globally too. After rapid increases in NNN.ins & LLL.ins sparked by the Chinese, then will come massive increases in sale prices of .IN keywords, which are already becoming hot property in India right now anyway.

The .IN extension is definitely the future of the Indian Webspace and the market is starting to move extremely fast at this moment in time, some very exciting times ahead! Not sure if you guys have been keeping up to date with the news, but over the last few months, there has been some very big news about the Indian webspace market. Flipkart, India’s largest e-commerce company, raised $6 Billion in total venture capitalists, and $1 Billion just last year and the company is now valued at $15 Billion. This funding figure matches facebook’s fundraising back in 2011 and makes it the third largest deal of its kind in the world!

Also during the same week last year, Amazon announced a $2 Billion investment in its India unit and has recently stated that India is the next ‘Trillion Dollar’ market, stating that the size of opportunity in India is so large it will be measured in trillions, not billions!

There are many excellent figures for India's internet entrepreneurs from the commitment and faith in India of the larger firms & global corporations. There have been many such multi-billion/million deals last year and this year seems just as exciting, if not more. There are also major rumors now that Walmart's entry into Indian e-commerce is very imminent! Things are starting to move extremely quickly over there and the market is about to mature to a completely new level guys! Just yesterday, the Prime Minister of India launched a $1.5 Billion fund for new startups. India truly is on the cusp of a digital revolution. Mobile phone subscriptions in the country have already passed the 1 Billion mark and these are now quickly being replaced by smartphones. This is pretty much a once in a lifetime moment, and the prime minister has stated that “the transformation occuring is on a scale that is, perhaps, unmatched in human history”.

The changing landscape in India is now moving at neck breaking speed. Internet access has rapidly expanded and the Reliance Group is due to make a move by summer of this year that will totally change everything in India, with EXTREMELY cheap access to 4G! Already mostly through mobile devices, Indians are now increasingly shifting daily activity online, like reading the newspaper, doing bank transactions and buying goods and services, from shoes to refrigerators etc….

Nowadays in India, billboards, text messages and emails bombard people every day with news of deep online-only discounts and special offers. By June, more Indians are expected to access the Internet on their cellphones — 371 million — than the entire population of the United States! And we are just talking about cellphone internet connections here, not even including the other initiatives in fixed line, fibre optic, cable connections etc…

Just this week, an indian firm just released a smartphone that is priced under 500 rupees, less than 5 USD (1% of the price of the latest Apple iPhone). The current median in India age is 27, nearly a full decade younger than in China!

E-commerce in India is growing at a compound annual rate of 34 percent, according to the Internet and Mobile Association of India.

By next year, many experts agree on the fact that there will be half a billion Indians online. India has already surpassed the USA in terms of number of users. A flood of cheap smartphones in the market is encouraging rapid internet adoption and an online revolution is taking place. Unlike the other BRIC countries such a China, Russia and Brazil, the consumers in India are largely Anglophone which means that as Indians become the second-largest nationality online (after the Chinese), they simultaneously will become the single largest group on the English-language internet. A vast majority of them using the English language as the preferred way to communicate online!


On top of that mobile increase, fibre optic subscribers through the Indian government's NOFN project are likely to reach over 600 million by 2020! With average Internet speeds in India set to triple over the next couple of years, this is going to be the LARGEST MARKET in the world and it will all start kicking off towards sometime this summer!



India is the worlds largest democracy and has the second largest population of English speakers in the world. It also currently has the world's largest youth population. In total the population of India is equivalent of more than the populations of Europe and the US combined! Just think about this sort of opportunity guys!

Just literally a few months ago, Japans richest man (owner of SoftBank) invested $627million in an Indian web company and stated that is had plans to invest $10Billion over the next couple of years due to the vast market potential of India.



India's population has now crossed over the 1 billion mark, more than half of its population are younger than 25 and nearly 70 percent of its 1.25 billion population is under 40. Therefore in absolute numbers, this is actually unprecedented anywhere in the history of the world. It also comes at a time when much of the developed world and also China have aging populations. Overall, India will overtake China as the largest population in the world before 2030. At the current growth rate, India will easily exceed 600 million internet users by 2018 or much before that. This will make India the biggest open internet access market in the world and therefore this is the place to capitalize on some serious growth. And remember guys, India is the largest DEMOCRACY in the world, and that word democracy is what is changing the minds of Google, Twitter, Facebook, Uber etc…to start moving away from China and more into India.

India is also set to overtake the U.S. as the world's largest Facebook market by number of users before the end of this year, which already at over 135 million users, is the only country specific market in the world where Facebook is aspiring to have 1 billion users, nowhere else are they or can they even aspire for this guys. It was literally just a few months ago that Zuckerberg met with Modi to discuss the push forward of internet useage in India and has been in India yet again to push his ideas. Discussions are always continuing with the top web corporations and the politicians of India, to push forward Internet useage in the country.

India added 100 million new users to the Internet in 2015, taking the country to more than 400 million users -- more than there are residents of the US. But with another 800 million yet to be connected, the world's biggest tech companies are eager to be a part of India's consumer tech boom in the next few years. Between Google last month beginning its mission to hook up train stations around India with free Wi-Fi and Facebook's controversial Free Basics initiative, which will give limited e-services to the poor at no cost, expect the numbers to only accelerate. In 2015, smartphone sales in India eclipsed those in the US for the first time ever, according to Counterpoint Research. China remains the world's largest phone market, but it's nearing saturation point, with growth stalling in 2015 for the first time. The US is a similarly tough nut to crack, with 79 percent of people already owning smartphones, according to ComScore.

Due to these statistics and current initiatives and business projects taking place in this country, India is of course set to shortly become the largest population of web users in the world!

I realize guys that many of you may primarily be involved in .COM and you may ask that although India is rapidly becoming a massive user base in the online world, why would the users move to a cctld like .IN rather than .COM or another of the many new/old extensions? My belief is that .COM is becoming slightly saturated or which I why I chose .IN over .COM when concentrating on ROI.


Of course, I believe that .COM is still CURRENTLY king globally and will be king for a long long time, there is no denying that. I personally started off in domaining over 12 years ago with primarily .coms, .orgs and .nets. I now have no .coms in my portfolio and have also sold most of my .nets and .orgs too to generate enough funds to buy into .IN which I believe is the next big thing for sure! .Com is great for primarily international/USA traffic, but Google has a local search site for many individual countries, for example Google.ca for Canada, Google.fr for France & Google.co.uk for the UK. These local search engines tend to give priority to local domains and Google in India will tend to give priority for .IN extensions when end users are searching for specific items. Therefore IF any major corporation is interested in gaining traffic from INDIAN customers then they will need the .IN extension to further this cause and create a highly ranked online portal to their store/services through the Indian webspace, which now many of them are already doing. I know that algorithms are continually changing and take into account many more other factors than this, and I may not be completely correct in my understanding. But using the .IN extension to start operations in India is a growing market and many global/Indian corporations are already doing this. .IN is now the primary extension for India and is unbeatable in generating traffic for businesses through the web whom want to capitalize on India’s enormous population. 



Most companies based within India are using .IN sites as their primary websites and redirecting their .com sites to the .IN ones and having been doing so for many years now. Also, many international companies are already using .IN sites as their primary portals for Indian originated specific traffic and then transferring into their .com sites or even just using the .IN sites as their primary sites over there, built specifically for the Indian market. Most international companies use ccTLDs in this manner and they are not just bought as a defensive move to protect their trademark and name, although this is definitely also a major advantage of owning all important extensions of a brand in new major emerging markets. Also another great stat is that the IMF have concluded that the total size of the Indian economy is set to surpass that of Japan and Germany combined by 2019.

Again, why not .com for Indians? Well .com is still used by Indians and it always will be just as it is still used by Germans or the British. But INDIAN users do often prefer the .IN extension over .com, unless of course they are specifically looking for products or services that are based outside of India. This is similar to markets such as the UK in which .co.uk is the predominant extension used, German market where .de is used over .com unless looking for global services etc.....Yet India is even more nationalistic than most of these other countries and in a similar manner to China, Indians always prefer to use INDIAN identifiable services & options due to long established trust and pride in their country and this is exactly why the .IN extension is prime real estate for the Indian webspace. It is also the preferred extension that is being pushed by the Indian government and that is exactly why many are now investing in .IN names.



Guys, im sure you're pretty much up to date with the current marketplace anyway but yeah go ahead and check out the statistics for yourself in regards to India and i'm pretty sure that you'll agree with me when I say that it is going to blow up in a massive way! All of these stats that I have mentioned can be verified on many established global business/news sites with a simple google search.

There's literally $Billions currently being poured into the Indian Webspace and Indian Internet usage right now, every single western/global company is dying to get in and many Indian companies are racking up their arsenal as we speak. The newly formed government is extremely pro-digital and the word on the street is that they are going to quickly start easing out a lot of national policies, making it easier to carry out business/services online. This already occurred yesterday in the start up sector.

I'm not sure if you guys are aware of what occurred just over a decade ago in relation to the telecoms industry over there but it went absolutely crazy and led to a full on price war in relation to tariffs and mobile phone products, which led to India rapidly becoming the number two country of the highest users of mobile devices in the world (soon to become number one). Yet this time, the rate of growth is expected to be more than triple that in relation to web usage, smartphone adoption ect.... Extremely cheap 4G with subsidised smartphones, tablets is expected to be rolled out on a national scale in 2016 by major companies such as Reliance ect.....

The number of end users in India is already set to surpass the number in USA, and we've not even reached the quarter way point in terms of the size of population in India.

The major western corporates are already betting big on India and by the end of the year, it'll be far too late to get in on the game as many old school players would've already got a foothold on the major keywords and won't be letting go for spare change. I myself wish I had go in earlier on the .IN game. BUT there is still massive opportunity RIGHT NOW, as it is STILL a buyer’s market which I don’t believe will be the case in one years time!
And since the market is on the cusp of exploding in India and I know the potential worth of these names in a year or two time will be immense.



Guys, you have to realise that by 2018, India will have twice the number of Internet users as the US does and has already overtaken the US in terms of number of user at the end of last year. Of course the market will take a while to fully mature, but in sheer advertising potential alone, this is amazing! And plus the speed of adoption nowadays both in web services and ecommerce is incredibly fast!
India already at this moment in time has over 400 million internet users, which is nearly 17 times the full actual population of the country of Australia guys. And as I write this email this very moment, India is adding 1.25 millions internet users to the web every single week which is nearly 180,000 new unique users of the internet per day! By the end of today, another 180,000 users would've come online and have started searching for things on the web and the same will happening again tomorrow, and the day after and the day after that....ect..... Those figures are just too wild to ignore! Yes of course, all of these users are not mature users as in the west, they will not all buy lots of items on through the web, they may not all spend hours on the web every single day BUT these aspects are rapidly changing and these users are quickly changing their habits and many are starting to replicate our habits here in the west.

Once an Indian picks up a smartphone, they will never go back! I think that investors in the web game tend not to pay too much attention on new emerging markets in the beginning, always instead looking towards .com & the western markets which I believe have now started to slowly saturate in terms of growth. Why buy up in Beverly Hills when there is no further growth happening there? When instead we can look at a new neighbourhood that is growing beyond all expectations and will soon be the new Beverly Hills of the East! The time is now, the buyers market is now! I don’t think investors here should miss out on this chance! Obviously no one here will take this information as gospel, so therefore I request anyone whom finds all of this interesting, then please research into this for yourself and I am sure that you will find that adding some nice .ins into your portfolio NOW rather than later will be a good financial decision.

 

[HUKU]

And remember guys, India is the largest DEMOCRACY in the world, and that word democracy is what is changing the minds of Google, Twitter, Facebook, Uber etc…to start moving away from China and more into India.

I agree with most of what you say except for the above point. I think if anything, people are realising that democracy is not necessarily the only model that works. The reason that some money is moving away from China at the current time is because the Chinese economy is slowing and India is likely to be the fastest growing economy in the world this, and possibly next, year. There also appears to be a credit bubble in China and the potential for a hard landing over there.

The biggest myth about India, I found, was the perception that India has slow internet. When I was last in India, a few years back speeds of well over 100Mbps were quite the norm for landline broadband so I'm quite certain things have moved forward since then. Slow speeds tend to remain in areas that are just economically irrelevant. The major obstacle I see for end user sales is not the lack of capital or the speed of the internet but rather the Indian Mindset. The pace of change in India is far more rapid than any change in the way of thinking.

Indian's culturally have always avoided paying high prices where a cheaper option was available and in general I find that Indian's will be very reluctant to pay high prices for domain names whether dot com or dot in and this is where you need to focus your attention. The question you need to ask is (a) how many domain names have you sold to indians or india based end users. If the answer is few, then you need to ask is whether you expect that to change in the future and by how much.

 

[LeDomain]

I was registering .in and .co.in since early days, but truly realized .in potential when a major corporation bought a .co.in (great product keyword) from me in 2010. They were buying the keyword in all cctlds. Paid a great price ($xx,xxx) and I sold it practically overnight. I know that doesn't happen often, but that showed me what is possible when the right buyer comes around. Are you willing to wait ? That's really the question here..

For domainers there is plenty of options around, but for those who want to participate in India's future growth (whether your Indian or not), can't think of a better way right now.

 

[Truekumar]

Well it's been an exciting week for .IN and the Indian scene as a whole. Firstly China has brought in some further domain name & web regulations to their already extremely stringent rules, causing a further lack in confidence from foreign players in the Chinese market. I believe that although the Chinese market will always be massive, it will be much more of a closed market than India and therefore India truly IS the new China, and India in the long term will be much more exciting and appealing to foreign players than China, it will be bigger in terms of the potential of ecommerce and internet services. More and more players are now looking towards India!

During this same week, Alibaba (China's own monster giant) announced that they are now preparing to enter the Indian market. At the same time, there were headlines stating that Amazon has a $5 Billion war chest ready for its India operations and is currently applying its finishing touches to its largest campus outside of the US in Hyderabad (India).

The big players are already moving .IN, and the medium and smaller players both global and national will quickly follow suit. The Indian market is now ripe for MASSIVE potential and ready to grow beyond belief. The entry of so many different global players, including already growing home grown national ones will only push forward the growth of the web in India. On top of this, many many startups are popping up all over India and the majority are choosing to use .IN!

For those of you whom are interested in also keeping up to date with what is happening on the registry side of the .IN extension, I suggest you follow the following social links:

https://twitter.com/inregistry

https://twitter.com/_DigitalIndia

https://www.facebook.com/OfficialDigitalIndia

The government has started some really nice ad campaigns on these social pages to push forward the awareness of the .IN extension in India. Billboards are also starting to appear all over India!

And for those of you whom are interested in keeping up to date with some of the current sales happening in the .IN space, then check out the following sites:

http://domainmarket.in/sales/

http://the.in

And those of you whom may be interested in trading (both selling and buying) .IN domain names then there is an excellent WhatsApp group that is doing really well at the moment, please see the following thread and contact 'domainpundit' for more details whom I am sure would be happy to add you:

https://www.namepros.com/threads/dedicated-in-whatsapp-aftermarket-group.929275/#post-5434812

 

[aceeca]

"India is the largest DEMOCRACY in the world,"

India Remains One Of The Most Corrupt Countries In The World

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ronakde...-corrupt-countries-in-the-world/#4240bfe025d8


DEMOCRACY = CORUPTION

First off, you are sensationalizing corruption in India. To see where India ranks actually, please see:

http://www.transparency.org/cpi2015#results-table

India is ranked out of 76 out of 168 countries. That is mid-way, how can it be MOST corrupt ?

For a population of 1.2B+ folks, having a rank mid-way isn't bad. Few points about corruption:

1. US with all the resources & tech is still ranked 16th.
2. China is ranked worse than India. And last I checked China was NOT a democracy.
3. India is huge, not only in terms of population, but in terms of diversity in language, religion and practices. That being said, changing any parameter takes time, but its headed in the right direction.

The problem for businesses in India is the mess with legislation across the states and nationwide, corruption, lack of infrastructure (third of country does not have electricity).

:sigh: again short of facts, but huge sense of sensationalism. India has 650K villages out of which 18K+ were lacking electricity. Please see: http://garv.gov.in/dashboard

18K/650K = ~3% , So you added an extra 3 to make it 33% just to run India down. Good job for trying.

Another point, if you see the website, http://garv.gov.in/dashboard , 38% of the un-electrified villages are already electrified. The goal is to electrify all the remaining by end of 2018.

In short, it is not business friendly and hence the reason its per capita is 1/5 of China's. It might grow slightly better because of starting very low, but that might as well come to screeching halt.

Any number / study / paper to back your claim?

Indian government does not have tools and means China has to overcome any issues, change direction, adapt.

Any facts to back your claim?

While people outsource to India for some services (calls, accounting etc.), they don't take there any production. Even Bangladesh gets more of western production.

:sigh: Please tell me which index are you using to claim that production is higher in Bangladesh than India?

I know its a lot of work to get correct numbers and facts right, the least we can hope is you make an effort.

 

[jmcc]

Some European(ish) figures.

Total - com - net - org - biz - info - mobi - asia

Germany DE 8,120,903 5,522,117 1,049,640 684,179 186,917 628,156 32,881 17,013
United Kingdom UK 4,169,397 3,265,150 372,676 295,283 77,060 125,761 24,154 9,313
France FR 3,608,794 2,646,008 405,367 313,377 72,042 147,302 17,363 7,335
Spain ES 1,493,753 1,193,316 144,025 100,128 10,693 38,733 6,472 386
Netherlands NL 1,454,053 1,114,687 125,085 96,483 22,963 83,804 8,154 2,877
Italy IT 1,393,851 1,008,594 167,502 111,436 34,124 64,323 6,250 1,622
Switzerland CH 986,378 819,448 72,500 50,005 10,195 30,583 2,078 1,569
Denmark DK 757,635 604,805 73,070 48,056 9,750 18,220 1,846 1,888
Sweden SE 398,312 286,269 42,783 34,172 11,032 18,376 3,380 2,300
Poland PL 338,917 234,328 37,541 26,989 12,276 26,341 938 504
Czech Republic CZ 263,493 180,414 35,886 16,380 6,444 23,240 847 282
Belgium BE 226,812 126,264 72,184 13,357 3,784 9,520 859 844
Austria AT 218,383 150,565 27,480 16,695 4,992 17,852 456 343
Bulgaria BG 196,343 150,865 20,728 13,482 2,392 8,386 307 183
Norway NO 189,753 126,683 29,839 19,927 4,123 8,012 1,025 144
Ireland IE 184,153 156,440 12,996 9,053 1,920 2,765 865 114
Luxembourg LU 157,210 129,813 9,915 6,612 2,594 3,802 1,998 2,476
Finland FI 116,524 72,096 29,123 7,099 1,156 5,434 1,522 94
Lithuania LT 82,471 66,027 6,698 4,394 818 4,095 203 236
Portugal PT 77,971 65,647 7,186 3,762 454 829 74 19
Hungary HU 77,493 59,333 8,344 3,846 1,101 4,642 157 70
Greece GR 74,082 61,177 6,538 3,737 636 1,787 176 31
Slovakia SK 71,138 52,523 8,182 4,591 1,605 3,878 285 74
Cyprus CY 58,137 47,272 5,515 3,162 448 1,554 66 120
Romania RO 57,840 39,958 5,771 3,440 1,188 7,280 127 76
Croatia HR 34,044 26,996 3,926 1,228 618 1,247 26 3
Slovenia SI 28,434 19,552 5,128 2,037 408 1,221 61 27
Estonia EE 25,661 19,411 3,039 1,609 336 1,174 74 18
Serbia RS 24,532 19,564 2,041 1,804 298 793 31 1
Albania AL 11,889 11,384 223 207 27 40 6 2
Latvia LV 11,489 8,883 1,252 655 173 457 35 34
Gibraltar GI 8,226 4,468 1,089 376 85 2,028 68 112
Jersey JE 7,561 5,520 879 596 203 346 13 4
Iceland IS 7,426 5,212 1,118 708 117 242 14 15
Liechtenstein LI 3,332 2,605 301 228 46 128 6 18
Bosnia and Herzegovina BA 3,208 2,265 328 403 41 170 1 0
Moldova MD 2,245 1,789 165 169 30 89 2 1
Malta MT 1,917 1,622 135 92 18 41 5 4
Isle of Man IM 1,915 1,578 186 89 28 31 2 1
Andorra AD 1,713 1,444 110 74 35 48 2 0
Monaco MC 1,370 973 170 141 37 32 13 4
San Marino SM 1,209 910 165 50 35 37 12 0
Macedonia MK 495 402 40 32 10 11 0 0
Guernsey GG 25 19 3 2 0 1 0 0
Former Czechslovakia CS 8 4 1 1 0 2 0 0
Vatican City VA 5 0 0 5 0 0 0 0
Greenland GL 4 4 0 0 0 0 0 0

Regards...jmcc

 

[Truekumar]

Well it's been a week of some very promising announcements. Alibaba which has been predicted to surpass Walmart as the world biggest retailer, this week announced that they will be entering the Indian ecommerce sector this year. The Andhra Pradesh state government has announced that it will be taking affordable and cost effective high speed fibre optic broadband to all households and businesses in the state by the end of this year, this will only encourage other states to do the same. Indian railways announced high-speed WiFi availability at all major stations this year.

And on top of all this good news, a top Nasscom official has stated that India will capture 20 per cent market share in Internet of Things (IoT), an emerging sector which would be worth $300 billion by 2020. A 20% global market share of this industry is massive! With all of this growth happening at such a rapid rate, interest in the .IN extension is picking up on an enormous scale with many companies now taking a big interest in setting up on the .IN extension. I and many other .IN portfolio holders are seeing many more enquiries coming through on a daily basis and it seems as if this momentum is picking up pace. India, the previously sleeping Tiger has now awakened and is rising to challenge the global order, and the .IN extension is riding on its back! It is going to be an exciting ride indeed!

 

[LeDomain]

Here are some of the factors I have paid attention to :
- Real estate prices in India - prices have soared in the last 15 years
- Indian cricket players are now some of highest paid sports personalities in the world, this includes baseball, football, soccer, basketball etc. See Forbes list
- Indian movie stars also show up in Forbes highest paid actors list worldwide, Very comparable to Hollywood stars
- Automotive production is currently 4th in the world, but still ways to go to catch up with US and China
- India could be the largest online population - english users

Overall things are headed in the upward direction, there is still a disconnect between Real Estate prices and Domain Name valuations. This disconnect is closing as corporations /small and big realize .in domain names are online properties and very valuable in their marketing efforts.

Do we need to hype it anymore, don't think so, but there needs some education of .in domains in India and that my friends is currently picking up..

 

[Truekumar]

@redesignunit, remember that you have to look at the overall growth happening right now and ROI in regards to the initial capital that you are putting in. China will of course continue to be a great economical power but it's growth is now starting to saturate which means that ROI is not going to be as good as it is predicted to be in India over the next 15-20 years.

If you are looking for a mature saturated large economy for your investment then forget even China and instead you then you might as well just stick to .com and USA. But for me and many others, .com has little ROI left unless you have major bucks to spend on high profile premium single word names and buy them from the major corporations that already own most of them. To be honest, premium .com game is extremely expensive to enter, otherwise you have to end up playing with long extended triple, quadruple names that you might hope to flip one day to an interested end user. Instead, try looking at the country with the most potential to become MASSIVE in a big way over the next few years, especially in terms of technological and economical growth and your research will always lead you to INDIA.

India is ripe and ready to explode within a year or less. The rate of growth happening in all aspects of its economy RIGHT NOW as we speak, are incredible and with China slowing down, India is the place that everyone is running towards, including all the major corporations. Compound GDP growth takes time, but current predictions from many experts show that India is in the running to outpace China in the near future. Do not underestimate the speed at which growth can take place in a country with such a young population, increasing middle class and a country willing to open up their markets to the rest of the world.

Anyway, I agree with the above comment from willtord about places you can market your .IN names. Also contacting organisations both within and outside of India whom may have interests in doing business in India is a good option, you would be surprised at how many actually respond and take an interest....remember India is a massive market for many products and services and is expanding on a daily basis.

Oh and apart from the other blogs, sites and forums previously mentioned on this thread, we have another blog that has come online and can be used for more info and it is: http://www.domainmarket.in/blog/

 

[djum]

TLDR: The reason is: Chinese boss said: "Let's go .in". Nuff said.

 

[domainpundit]

"India is the largest DEMOCRACY in the world,"

India Remains One Of The Most Corrupt Countries In The World

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ronakde...-corrupt-countries-in-the-world/#4240bfe025d8


DEMOCRACY = CORUPTION

Great share, thank you for the same. What is interesting to me its correcting its positions from
2013 --> 94
2014-->85
2015 --> 76

Author of the article stated the below details
"
Denmark topped the CPI, while North Korea and Somalia were the worst performer, earning the dubious distinction of being the most corrupt countries in the world. The United States earned a score of 76, while China fared slightly worse than India, receiving a 36.


India’s score remained unchanged from last year, but its overall position in the index improved notably compared to years past. Transparency International ranked the world’s largest democracy the 85th and 94th most corrupt country in the world in 2014 and 2013, respectively.

Some may see this as evidence of receding corruption in India. More likely, however, is that other nations have become comparatively more corrupt, improving India’s relative position in the rankings."


China is performing worser than India , however chinese domains are selling like hot cakes.. from domains invest point of view its already proven corruption is nothing to do with the success of domain investment to large extent offcourse its good to have corruption free and its further add to the investment friendly atmosphere what is interesting is at the speed the democracy nation is maturing and also India is relatively young country and compare to the most corruption free nations , Indian PM has identified the need and pushing "Digital India" to reduce the amount of corruption ..

 

[LeDomain]

I find the Automotive Market is a great predictor of the overall economy in the country. In 2016 India is expected to be the 3rd largest in the world with around 4 million passenger vehicles. It is still quite behind US (around 17 million) and China (around 20 million). The trajectory for the Indian market is quite good and in 5 years we could be closing in quite a bit.

In the late 1990's in the US, not many believed in the Chinese auto market, at that time China was making about a million vehicles. In 2014 or so China became the largest market. The point being, we can't underestimate the momentum and growth that is possible when a 500 million people reach the middle class.

The domain market will track the Automotive market very closely in terms of domain valuations in my opinion. So hang in there folks..

 

[Lionel Cohen]

Last week newly funded Indian start ups:

PriceMap. Seed $600,000. PriceMap.in
Wealthy. Seed $240,000. Wealthy.in
PinkBlue. Seed $224,000. PinkBlue.in
eSwasthya, Angel Undisclosed. eSwasthya.in

 

[jmcc]

Bottomline question - how many businesses have primary domain as .in/.cn vs how many are using .com?

That would require a full ccTLD web survey and analysis. However the Indian domain name market is still a relatively new market. This means that the trends that would be expected in a mature market, (local ccTLD activity being greater than .com/gTLD activity), have yet to happen.

I think its still about if i dont get a .com, i will work with cctld until i get .com and if .com is too expensive to acquire let me think of a different name altogether.

Domain markets generally start off with .com and the people using them are selling to customers outside the country. As the market develops, the local ccTLD begins to become important but .com still dominates. When the market matures, there is a switch from .com to the local ccTLD as selling to people within the country becomes the dominant form of business. That's when the public gets the idea that a new website targeting people in the country should have a .ccTLD domain name. When that happens, the .com domain count in the country begins to slow and often the growth in the ccTLD will be greater than that of .com domain names in that country.

The other aspect that a lot of domainers miss about ccTLDs is that registration activity is about specifics (brands/business names/geos) rather than generics. The ccTLDs have their own geography.

Regards...jmcc

 

[LeDomain]

Check out my .IN Promo video - little bit of history, strategy for India and Cybersquatting

 

[aceeca]

I have already seen massive increase in inquiries.

Just this past week I have heard about 4 BIG sales. I'm hoping that some of them are revealed.

 

[Truekumar]

I agree with many comments on this thread, especially in regards to sales. There are now many high value transactions of .in domains occurring on a daily basis, most of which are not being reported. This non-reporting of high value sales are of course not great for general awareness and for people wanting more information on the extension as an investment, but hopefully this non-revealing tactic that many are involved will decrease over time and we will see much more public sales.

In other news, mobile data users in India is increasing day by day and therefore web traffic will in turn increase on a massive scale, extrapolating into the need for more and more business to come online who in turn will all need domain names and since most of the decent .coms are already taken for US/worldwide businesses, then they will then look towards .ins - this IS ALREADY happening.

Some interesting news below in regards to 4G. India is already set to leave the US behind:

http://www.businesstoday.in/sectors...ne-base-report-jio-jiophone/story/257288.html

And with China moving quickly into the Indian market with their smart phones, there is definitely an awakening happening, with everyone looking to India for the explosion:

http://www.businesstoday.in/technol...-set-to-enter-indian-market/story/257425.html

 

[LeDomain]

What’s the % of English speaking population in India?

Its a moving target, would guesstimate at around 20% (that would be roughly 200 million) with levels of proficiency.
- Also factor in , almost entire national advertising is in English, since that's the common thread among all the people who speak multiple languages
- English is aspirational language for kids in the rural areas (its the ticket to bigger and better jobs)
- Schools that are English Medium (english is not just a second language, its the medium of instruction for science, math, social sciences etc), unlike how Spanish or French is taught to students here (where its a second language)
- English is spoken in all if not most offices as the business language (again for the same reason, not everyone speaks Hindi - north to south to east to west). Business documents are predominantly in English
- Professional education - engineers, doctors, lawyers , accountants - english is language of instruction

I can go on..

In short its second biggest market next to the US (english language) - if not already would soon be. The other big economies - China, German, Japan, UK

How does that impact English keywords in .IN and .CO.IN ? Its a pretty simple correlation , if you ask me

 

[martworld]

Well I disagree. In my view, the importance of democracy has been overplayed as its the largest democracy in the world. Has it hindered China in any way shape or form that it is not a democracy? I doubt it...... to live and do business in China, you cannot tell that you are not in a democracy. Chinese people are not oppressed.

In India, you have strong Religion and weak Government.

In China, you have strong Government and weak Religion.

The bottom line is that although the Government does intervene, China has been very successful because its easy to do business and democracy just doesn't come into it. The obstacle in India is mainly, as I said previously, poor education, corruption and bureaucracy. Nothing gets done quickly in India unless you pay a bribe..... bribing people do to jobs is just NORMAL BEHAVIOR especially when it comes to dealing with the bureaucracy which is far more of a discouragement for business than anything else you'd like to mention.

Incidently, the Ease of Doing Business yearly report that ranks the top 190 countries for business. The most recent puts Singapore in first position as the most easy place to do business. China is at position 84 and India is at position 130.

I think you are not upto date with whats going on presently in India

After the General elections in May 2014, everything has changed for good:

1) Govt. is very Strong Now with full majority & one of the STRONGEST LEADER after Indra gandhi.

2) Corruption has reduced drastically and TOP and middle level has almost vanished.

3) Ease of doing business has improved considerably. India's position has improved from Over 165 to 130 now and improving further.

Present govt. is very committed to root out the corruption, they are very taking decisions very fast, bureaucracy is on their toes, they have set targets for everything-from road projects to port projects.
They are making everything transparent and open to the citizens. Digital India project launched by Indian govt. is a great success which is helping poorest of the poor as leakages are kept at bay and benefits are reaching directly to the poor.(like gas subsidies, insurance etc)

In fact, In the History of independent India, It is the FIRST GOVT. which is committed to DELIVER and making India realize the dream of becoming "DEVELOPED COUNTRY"

 

[HUKU]

It is a know fact that democracy increases gross domestic product by about 20 percent in the long run and business investment has always been higher in democracies.

Well if that's the case then why is India so far behind China? They have around the same population size. India has been an democracy and a free market economy for almost 70 years. Yet China is more than four times larger than India by GDP.

Anyway, if India was as big as China, there would be less opportunity not more. The investment opportunity is multiplied by the growth trajectory. Also I definitely don't think that the prevailing view today is that democracy is always desirable. In fact, the idea of democracy as a system has been somewhat degraded in recent years and with western interventions in foreign countries ie "bringing democracy to Iraq" etc as well as big money political campaigns. Democracies don't always listen to their people and they can often just become big government sucking up resources like a humongous parasite.

An open political system would always be much better for business as stable, transparent governments built on respect for human rights and the rule of law tend to foster environments that are conducive to the establishment and unfettered operation of private enterprises. Conversely, regimes that oppress their populations are more likely to limit business opportunities. Of course democracy is clearly not the only factor behind good economic performance, but more often than not, it provides the long-term political stability and corrective mechanisms that form a foundation for safe investment and steady growth.

I can see where you got the above line but you should have given them a credit since you copied them word for word (freedomhouse.org/blog/democracy-good-business) from a website dedicated to championing democracy which is hardly an objective source. Anyhow, I am not saying that an open transparent government and human rights etc is not beneficial.

I am simply saying, as per my previous comment, that the importance of democracy has been overplayed and is, in my view, somewhat exaggerated. Singapore is one of the most successful modern economies and it's not a classic democracy either.

As for oppression, there is no doubt about it. Indian's are far more oppressed than Chinese people. However, in India its religious, caste, social, poor education and other things. Having interests in both countries and having spent years traveling through many cities of both countries, I know a thing or two about this.

the red tape is being cut into shreds on daily basis

There is no way that this will be resolved over night. It's a deep rooted problem. Have you ever spent more than 1 month outside of India? Indians are fiercely nationalistic but very few of those who live in India have spent a significant amount of time outside of India and so have very little to compare it with. Talk to any foreigners in India and they will tell you that the red tape is absolutely mind numbing.

Yes you do have strong religion in India but I don't see this as detriment to prosperity

I never said that it was and in fact, I believe its beneficial. I was just referring to the differences between the two. Anyhow, to round off I am in no way saying that India is not a great opportunity for investment. Investing in .in domains is investing in Indian internet business and it's a smart move but I am simply saying that there are many things to consider.

US Dept of Agriculture recently published a report anticipating India will be a top three economy by 2030 which means India has to move up 7 places which would be a great leap up the rankings. The order would then be (1) United States (2) China and (3) India.

 

[bytedo]

I noticed a trend where companies have a .com but have another sister website on .in. Some of the companies are UK/US based with a branch/branches in India while some are India headquartered but with global clients. If the trend continues (I dont see why not), then the .in market can only get more interesting given the size of the country and rate of economic growth.

 

[chandldj]

Italy was the same in early 2000. Company preferred .com.. Then .it started to grow and now is the standard. Yes you have some .com, some .tv and even some .net or other extension, but everyone thinks about .it when it comes to go to a website

Agreed - maybe at one time .com was coming to mind in India, but things have changed... if you grab any magazine in India now over 50% of domains in advertisements are .in AND GROWING!

In Canada, people specifically look for .ca so they know they are buying from Canada. When I see "clothes.com" I will assume this is a USA company NOT a company in India

 

[LeDomain]

Interesting discussion folks...the value of .in/.co.in is directly tied to the buying power in India and the growth of ecommerce. When everything comes together - increase in broadband access, growth in internet usage, spending increases, change in user behavior (buying more online) , then it becomes second nature. It becomes a necessity. How does .in cctld fit in the equation, its when small/medium and large corporations operating in India and globally ramp up their online presence. Yes, they can use a .com but to target your products/services to India (specific), its a clear message to use .in extension.There is a list of .com keywords owned by large corporations out there, but to get those keywords you will be spending millions of dollars. Eventually you may want to acquire those, but you may want to start with .in keywords targeting your industry.

I always loved an old Heineken Ad which said "When you make a great beer, you don't have to make a lot of fuss" . After seeing the progression in usage and value of .com domain names since 1998, can tell you .in is on a similar path. So we don't need to make a lot of fuss...(unlike some of the newer gtlds which obviously have to make a lot of fuss)

 

[donnied79]

I'm sorry but it's not true.
USA is an exception because americans think that .com is their ccTLD.
In Europe each and every country prefers the ccTLD over .com
In India is only a matter of time.
The 4L.com vs 3L.in is a matter of opinion. I alway pick a good CVCV.com over a CVC.in but I pick a random LLL.in over a random LLLL.com like kwup (no offense to the owner of this domain)

 

[Truekumar]

@Recons.Com, you seem to be quite unknowledgeable about the .IN market and the presence that .IN already has in the Indian online world, searching for a few Indian companies (whom probably set up their sites long before .IN even became established) does not imply Indian companies prefer .com for their operations in India. I have personally sold .INs to global companies whom own the relevant .coms & other extensions, because they still want the .INs to set up their Indian operations under the national extension for India.

Firstly your impression of .com vs cctlds is also incorrect. I live in the UK, and I can specifically state that the English prefer to use .co.uk over .com when setting up a national presence, and also customers such as myself prefer to use .co.uk sites over .com unless of course I am searching for a product or service which I believe will not be available in the UK. When I think of .com, I think of either a USA based entity or a global service which will not be specific to my needs and wants here in the UK. I want to head straight to an English site and not an American one. And this is the same sentiment that Indians are now developing towards .IN too. .IN represents India and something that will be more relevant towards Indians.