Registered base of .mobi domains is sinking.
The total number of .mobi domain names registered fell to 850,712 in July 2009, the latest number available through ICANN. That represents a 10% drop from the same month in 2008 when the total base was 946,357.
The number of .mobi domains registered has held stagnate this year, hanging around 850,000 domains.
.Mobi has been one of the best marketed new top level domain names to ever be released. A couple months ago I was surprised to see people calling out mTLD for not promoting the domain more. I suspect these people are more frustrated about resale values of the domain than mTLD’s marketing. mTLD has marketed the heck out of the domain, released software to support domain registrants, hooked up with GoDaddy (which has registered about half of all .mobi domains) and forged alliances with mobile device makers.
That said, it looks like 850,000 may be the ongoing magic number for .mobi domain registrations. A lot of people bought .mobi domain names for speculation, and with the resale market faltering, it’s unlikely to see a surge in new registrations for the domain.
Later today I’ll post numbers from .asia and .tel to show how those domains are performing.
[Update: as one reader pointed out, .mobi got a boost of about 100,000 domains recently with the launch of certain IDN domains. See comments.]
The July 2008-2009 year over year comparison is incomplete without an explanation of the typical 1st anniversary “junk drop” that took place from Oct08-Jan09. That event (which happens in all extensions following the initial multi-year registration period) accounted for the noted drop.
You are correct that through the middle 6 months of 2009 the registrations generally hovered in the 850,000 range. However, about a week prior to this blog post the number of .mobi regs surged back to over 950,000 due to the first introduction of Chinese IDN .mobi names.
Nov 1, 2009 /mobi registrations = 953142
http://www.hosterstats.com/Detailed-mobi-Statistics-2009.php
I would suggest scheduling an interview with the owner of HosterStats.com for a new blog post. He could provide your readers with a more comprehensive explanation of domain cycles for newer extensions including .mobi. I think that would lead to a greater overall understanding of the domain registration landscape and reduce the erroneous conclusions some readers may make from only part of the story.
Will,
excellent point on the Chinese IDN launch. I’m aware of the drop cycles for domains based on initial land rush.
“I suspect these people are more frustrated about resale values of the domain than mTLD’s marketing. mTLD has marketed the heck out of the domain”
Marketed to whom? Domainers? If mTLD has marketed the “heck” out of .mobi, then why does everyone know about the iPhone (which is newer than .mobi) but not a single person on the street has heard about .mobi more than 3 years into the extension, with almost a million active registrations, and tens of thousands of live sites?
No extension can be successful without consumer awareness. End of story.
Re: the Chinese IDN launch, it will do little for .mobi awareness outside of China, and expect a “Junk Drop” phase from the initial hype as well.
Until the average Joe on the street – scratch that – until the average mobile web user has heard about .mobi, this extension will be far from a success story.
It still has a long way to go and time is not on its side.
Josh, that’s my point in a way. You think they didn’t do much marketing to end users. But really they did and it just wasn’t enough. They struck deals and alliances with mobile phone companies and tried to reach out to end users. It still wasn’t enough. They would really need to do 100x as much to make it go mainstream.
It’s an interesting question whether there is any relationship between domain registration levels and Dotmobi’s quiet abandonment of the standards and compliance requirements for .mobi domains. The financial condition of the company is also an interesting condition, as it is a matter of public record that they have not been filing the required financial statements – see here for details and references http://mobility.mobi/showthread.php?p=125453
And of course check out the Gomo News article about Trouble in Dotmobi Paradise
http://www.gomonews.com/trouble-in-dotmobi-paradise/
Quote-
“No extension can be successful without consumer awareness. End of story.”
I own 20-30 really nice .mobi and 20 mediocre ones. I consider it lost money.
We are going to see this pattern a hundred times in about 4 yrs when all of the new tld’s are released and falter.
And, the new tlds will not have anywhere near the success that .mobi had.
I really wanted .mobi to succeed. Oh well.
“They struck deals and alliances with mobile phone companies and tried to reach out to end users”
Got any examples?
The only one I know of is Nokia using .mobi – the other founders/backers of .mobi, including Google and Microsoft each invested from €600,000 to €1,800,000 yet do not even use .mobi. The company structure was set up with an investement of €12,000,000 but allows issuing a further €18,000,000 in shares if anyone is interested.
Dotmobi have said themselves that they are only interested in businesses, ie selling their product B2B, and they have admitted they have no marketing budget.
Andrew, could you please provide examples of the marketing, deals, and alliances you speak of?
I could probably count them all with my left hand. It wasn’t enough because they didn’t do enough. It’s been low-quantity, low-quality deals all throughout. Look at their deal with City.mobi. I don’t know a single traveller who uses that network of sites. Look at their deal with Sedo to auction Premium Domains, it ended in lawsuits. Look at their deal with GoDaddy, which as the largest .mobi Registrar, probably strong-armed them into dropping their compliance initiative so they wouldn’t have to force it upon their customers. Look at the few RFP winners, many are using their free Premium .mobi’s as a redirect. Look at the backers, with few exceptions, they are an embarrassment to the company as they won’t even make use of the product they’re sponsoring. I can keep going if you like but it’s all pure bollocks.
Let’s be forthright, they marketed their Premium Domain Names to domainers and sold them exclusively via domainer channels (TRAFFIC, Sedo, etc.).
The company (mTLD) is asleep at the wheel and they will crash and take everyone down with them if they don’t wake up very soon.
Nobody is interested in .mobi except for a loyal group of domainers. If the company is unable to change that, this extension will go nowhere fast.
Josh – Believe me, I think .mobi is a lost cause. But let me put it another way…show me what any other TLD that has launched in the past few years has done for marketing to users…
Andrew – let me turn it around, show me what other TLD promised so much and delivered so little?
Josh, let me turn it around again… just kidding
Are you saying mTLD, the .mobi registry, promised so much or that the idea of .mobi promised so much?
.Me has marketed itself, and look at .tel’s site – persuasive stuff and videos aimed at both individuals and companies
http://www.telnic.org/individual-movie.html
http://www.telnic.org/business-movie.html
and this one is, well, attention getting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L46M6gSQ1LQ
@ GreatLeader – .mobi did the same sort of marketing. .Me’s marketing is mostly to get people to register the domain, too. Incidentally, what you saw in the .me country code domain shows the power of GoDaddy. We might see other launches like that with new TLDs if registrars are allowed to own registries.
Andrew – both, but mainly the .mobi registry. Some were direct promises, such as the compliance, others were more subtle but important innuendos built into their early hype, such as the role of the backers and the Premium Domains. If you read articles from before the landrush and compare to the reality today, it’s scandalous. But, alas, people have short term memories…
Josh – mTLD definitely hyped it up. But I think the domainers involved also hyped it up and got a bubble mentality when some of the domains sold for a lot of money.
The fact that mTLD made so much money off these auctions, and didn’t really care what people did after they got the domains (despite strict rules for compliance), is probably why this is the one TLD I’ve heard people refer to as “a scam”. But if any other new TLDs had that sort of early pricing bubble, we’d probably be saying the same thing about them.
At the end of the day, the main reason .mobi will fail is it’s not needed. People have found a technical approach to handle mobile web browsing.
No .mobi did not do the same kind of marketing – they have said repeatedly that they are not interested in individuals, only companies. The only marketing to individuals has been done by domainers with the why.mobi websites.
Are you being provocative when you make sweeping statements about what Dotmobi did without examples?
@ GreatLeader – no, I’m not being provocative. It seems like we’re both on the same page about the future of .mobi, so I don’t understand what the fuss is about. But here are a few examples of things .mobi has done:
-Gone to developer conferences to pitch mobile web and tools
-Extensive online documentation and advertising about mobile web, most sophisticated registry site and communications I’ve seen
-Partnerships and development of tools, such as Instant Mobilizer
-Backing from Ericsson, GSM Association, Google, Hutchison, Microsoft, Nokia, Orascom Telecom, Samsung Electronics, Syniverse, Telefónica Móviles, TIM (Telecom Italia), T-Mobile, Visa and Vodafone.
I don’t think any other new TLD released in the past few years has had that sort of backing and marketing.
Mobi was never needed – what it offered was convenience and the guarantee a site would work on any mobile device – so it was always going to be a marketing exercise, except there was no marketing.
OK I see what you are referring to but I guess it depends what you mean by marketing – I would not say that supplying mobile web tools and information sells domains – arguably it is a freebie to attract attention, but it is not marketing the core product – the .mobi domain. Some have argued that those are actually distractions.
In fact in the recent Webinar to try and pep up domainers to renew .mobi domains, Dotmobi CEO Trey Harvin argued that because Dotmobi talk to big companies they can influence them so they might use the .mobi domain later. Same argument – we can succeed without closing the sale. A bit sad.
@ Great Leader – was the webinar recorded? I’d love to see it.
Hi Andrew
it was recorded and it’s available here
http://www.domainerdeveloper.com/2009/08/mtld-conference-call.html
On that page you can listen to it or download the mp3.
Dotmobi refused to provide a transcript.
“…Dotmobi’s quiet abandonment of the standards and compliance requirements for .mobi domains.”
As I stated back when they made a huge point about how they were not going to put up with buyers not putting their .mobis into actual commercial use by canceling such non-use, it was all a smokescreen…
Can anyone name any .mobi that’s been canceled under their “iron-clad,” “must-use” contract?
mtld did a great job in China by cooperating with Chinese government. they successed in binding China idn .mobi with already well-known 12114 wireless keywords. it not only increased 10% registration, but also open the door to China 3g websites. China domainers already benefits from it. Now company knows .mobi and start to accept .mobi.
More comments about .mobi in China.
One China Domainer said that:
Before, there is no response at all after email end-user about .mobi; now there are about 10% will response. The China Company now accept .mobi rather than reject .mobi 🙂
Also, it is very hard to catch Chinese Premium Pinyin .mobi without backordering by Pool/SnapNames.
Ok. No matter what, mobile web browsing is going to be huge. No one questions that right?
So it is just a matter of whether companies are going to use m.site.com, or mobile.site.com. BUT unless they choose a universal standard, then consumers might confused. Correct?
In the event that everyone is confused, companies will want to CREATE SOME KIND OF STANDARD. Which is what .mobi was meant to be.
If they don’t create a standard, like everyone using m., or mobile., then do you think that still leaves opportunity for .mobi.
Also, I believe .mobi is still unlike ANY other extension strictly because it targets a completely different platform, mobile. Every other failed extension still targeted desktop/laptops, but .mobi does not.
Opinions?
Guy – one of the other standards could be just .com. With web detection, it’s getting easier to just render the same site differently for visitors depending on the device they use.
Good point. But that is somewhat of a pain for developers, no?
I guess the bottom line is, what odds do you put on .mobi catching on?
I’m considering buying some quality names (just a few), and given that the prices are so low it might be worth it. Even if the odds are 20:1 it fails.
I think the biggest problem that is in .mobi’s way is the fact that the ONLY people that know about it are a few businesses / mostly domain investors.
For it to ever get big, the CORRECT businesses need to own them so that they can actually use them to create value.
No one is creating value with .mobi domains, and thus, consumers don’t care about /remember it.
Still deciding on whether or not to pull the trigger…