Afilias Aquires DotMobi

Thursday, February 11th, 2010

Registry acquires .mobi operator.

Domain name registry Afilias has acquired DotMobi, the registry for .mobi top level domain names.

Afilias is best known for managing the .info domain name registry. It also provides registry services for more than 15 million domains. Afilias supports .INFO, .ORG, .aero, .ASIA, .AG (Antigua and Barbuda), .BZ (Belize), .GI (Gibraltar), .HN (Honduras), .IN (India), .LC (St. Lucia), .ME (Montenegro), .MN (Mongolia), .SC (the Seychelles), .VC (St. Vincent and the Grenadines).

Afilias already had a working relationship with DotMobi. From the press release:

Afilias and dotMobi have worked closely together since the Mobi JV (predecessor to dotMobi) was started by Nokia, Vodafone and Microsoft to apply to ICANN for the .mobi TLD in 2004. Upon approval, Afilias provided registry services in support of the successful launch in 2006, and today there are nearly one million .mobi registrations. Now more established, dotMobi will benefit from the increased focus that a seasoned registry expert like Afilias will provide.

It will be interesting to see if Afilias changes up the model for .mobi, a domain name intended for mobile web sites. Afilias’ strategy with .info is to basically give it away the first year, betting on customer renewals to generate revenue.

Further Reading:

  1. dotMobi to auction domains at TRAFFIC conference
  2. Tucows Sells Afilias Stake for $7.4 Million
  3. dotMobi Details 1 and 2 Character Domain Allocation Process

7 Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by

Comments

  1. Ace
    February 11th, 2010 | 1:35 pm

    Afilias has promotions for .in as well that last 8-10 months an year. What domainers do is drop the names after one year and register them after the drop for the promotional price. I don’t see any logic with this concept of having the promotion though.

  2. UDRPtalk
    February 11th, 2010 | 1:58 pm

    Unless each .mobi ownership is automatically paired with each .com ownership, there is no integrity in using a .mobi.

  3. Steve M
    February 11th, 2010 | 4:52 pm

    Up next: 99 cent registrations.

    But in .mobi’s case, it won’t matter, ’cause at that price, .infos are a better “crap extension” value.

  4. M. Menius
    February 12th, 2010 | 6:52 am

    .info is an excellent web address, and a big footprint worldwide. .mobi obviously in limbo. Not mainstream, but also not out. I admit that the sellout to Afilias was a surprise.

  5. chandan
    February 12th, 2010 | 2:16 pm

    hope they wont make .mobi for 10 cents registrations

  6. DomainersChoice.com
    February 13th, 2010 | 8:40 pm

    why not sell for 10 cents ? the people might actually register some ;-)

  7. Afilias buys .Pro registry (and some pending TLD trademarks) - Domain Name Wire
    January 17th, 2012 | 11:05 am

    [...] isn’t new to the registry acquisition game. It purchased the dotMobi registry in February [...]

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