Renewal rates seem to be in line with previous TLD launches.
Dot London revealed its initial renewal rates today, reporting that 75.4% of the domain names registered during sunrise, landrush and day one of general availability were renewed.
That means just shy of 29,000 of the 38,389 registrations were renewed.
Renewal rates for domain names registered during sunrise and landrush are generally higher than other registrations. The same can usually be said for domain names registered on the first day of general availability.
Last week Rightside revealed overall renewal rates of 67% so far across its portfolio of TLDs. It expects full year renewal rates to be between 50% and 67%.
Donuts, which offers more TLDs than any other registry by far, stopped reported renewal rates after initial numbers came in between 55% and 72%. The company had predicted renewal rates of 80%, and it seems that actual results came in well below that.
Based on other third party calculations I’ve seen, I believe most TLDs are seeing renewal rates between 50% and 70% over time.
New TLD registries will point out that first year renewal rates for .com are about 50%.
I suspect renewal rates range dramatically based on TLD affinity, pricing and promotional deals.
A good number of domain investors (developers too) are looking at what happens with the newer geo tld’s. I’m personally curious to see how .london, .nyc, .vegas, and .miami do over the next few years.
Each of these cities has a dedicated audience of local businesses and residents who could create their own microcosm. Whether or not this happens no one knows at this point. But my thought is that if one tales off, that model could be readily duplicated in other metro cities.
On the other hand, simply forwarding a new geo tld to a pre-existing .com site will not build this microcosm.