First Sedo .mobi auction nets $850,000.
After a roaring start, .mobi aftermarket sales cooled down over the past few months. But Sedo’s first .mobi premium domain name auction was a big hit, selling close to a million dollars of domains. The auction had restrictions; buyers have to develop the domains within 6 months. (I’ll follow up to see if that actually happens.)
The top sale was Hosting.mobi, which fetched $101,000. Other notable sales include bank.mobi ($51,501), download.mobi ($51,500), currency.mobi ($47,000) and insurance.mobi ($42,005).
Perhaps the most promising result in the auction was insurance.mobi — because of the buyer. It was purchased by Insurance.com, an independent, online insurance agency that compares insurance quotes. “We see the long-term value of the mobile internet,†said Joe Singleton, Director of Information Technology, Insurance.com. “The .mobi domain will be a valuable tool in continuing to build our future consumer offerings.â€
Flowers.com attempted to buy Flowers.mobi during a TRAFFIC auction, but TRAFFIC organizer Rick Schwartz outbid them. He paid $200,000 for the domain. By comparison, Insurance.mobi looks like a bargain.
The next Sedo .mobi auction is October 31. The auction will include car.mobi, gps.mobi, gay.mobi, kiss.mobi, love.mobi and map.mobi, among others.
Patrick McDermott says
Them is some incredible sales!
But does .mobi really have a future?
Will it really be a necessary domain extension going forward?
It was designed to show your web site on mobile phones.
But with the introduction of the Apple
iPhone web pages can be seen as they actually exist. Plus the iPhone has a .Com button.
Anyway I was just wondering if these big $ sales will pan out.
Patrick
Johnny says
.mobi are just starting. A small gold rush is starting to happen. Insurance.mobi went for so cheap compared to bank or hosting.mobi. Any names like lifeinsurance.mobi terminsurance.mobi, carinsurance.mobi autoinsurance.mobi are all worth at least 15k to 50k because of that sale. Same goes for bank.com banking.mobi loans.mobi atm.mobi or any related banking term. If you have a similar name your sitting on at least 10k if it is one word.