A look forward to 2019.
It’s 2019! As we ring in the New Year, I give my predictions for 2019. We’ll also hear predictions from 18 people from across the spectrum of domain names: domain registrars, registries, domain investors and more. Listen to predictions from:
Kellie Peterson (Automattic/WordPress.com)
Doron Vermaat (Efty)
Mike Gargiulo (VPN.com)
Mariah Reilly (Donuts)
Christa Taylor (dotTBA)
Giuseppe Graziano (GGRG.com)
Roland LaPlante (Afilias)
Rick Schwartz (Domain King)
Jason Eisler (.Club)
Elisa Cooper (Brandsight)
Marco Hoffmann (InternetX)
Lori Anne Wardi (Neustar)
Mike Ambrose (XYZ)
Peter Van Roste (CENTR)
Soeren von Varchmin (NamesCon/WHD)
Tobias Sattler (United Domains)
Todd Han (Dynadot)
Zak Muscovitch (Internet Commerce Association)
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Thanks for another great episode Andrew!
2 objective predictions: Giuseppe and Rick The others were just scripted PR
There were some really interesting ones in their. Soerens take on .com prices was interesting for example
Agree, those two were good.
.club’s was particularly bad, if it is mainly sales pitch it should not be published.
Ok agree with Rick Giuseppe Todd and hope predictions of Soeren and Zak will be true. I’m very bearish on domains real estate and the equity markets for 2019. Too much chaos and uncertainty in the markets worldwide. Only investments I see as non-risky: art by modern Masters such as rothko Kandinsky Jasper Johns and dozens more. But prices will be 50 million or more per work.
One of my predictions is the rise of the Uniregistry Market.
A couple of months ago Jeff Gabriel in a DNW podcast projected that Uni Market sales would reach $60M in 2018 (up dramatically from about $40M in 2017) saying:
“…We finished a little bit above $40M in sales [in 2017] and then this year we’re tracking to break $60M in sales in 2018.”
https://domainnamewire.com/2018/10/01/domain-sales-in-2018-jeff-gabriel-dnw-podcast-204/
And now just yesterday (8 Jan) in a terrific NamePros article by James Iles, Frank Schilling has just said:
“2019 will be the biggest year ever at Uniregistry and we are projecting 50%+ in our business…”
https://www.namepros.com/blog/ask-the-experts-are-you-bullish-or-bearish-on-domains.1117743/
So if both projections are accurate Uniregistry will be approaching $90M in sales!
Hi Dave,
Jeff’s numbers were specifically about domain sales. Not sure if Frank is banking on the registrar side picking up more. But Frank is definitely bullish.
A clever clarification Andrew, yes I did jump to conclusions a bit.
Still, I imagine that domain sales are one of the best Uni divisions, so significant growth can still be anticipated.
I was also factoring in Frank’s November tweet where he says: “we are launching the greatest piece of sales infrastructure ever launched to sell a domain name.” (The schedule for this seems to be around August).
Also, I like Mariah Reilly’s prediction that registrars will compete more with SquareSpace, Weebly and Wix. This could be exciting for aftermarket domains too. Uni’s new rapid site builder has potential to unlock more value from domain names by creating more sophisticated landers.
Congratulations Andrew on persuading such a great range of experts to attempt to predict 2019. Good gender balance too. It’s also great to expand the usual spectrum of domain commenters, for example by including CENTR and BrandSight.
One notable theme is that a number predicted growth for either the new gTLDs or the dot brands. That makes sense, given the evidence so far. Nobody predicts a decline.
This shouldn’t be surprising when the evidence is considered…
In 2017, Donuts was named NUMBER ONE in Deloitte’s “2017 Technology Fast 500 Ranking Recognizing growth.”
https://domainnamewire.com/2017/11/09/domain-name-company-donuts-tops-deloittes-2017-technology-fast-500/
(Congratulations Mariah Reilly!)
Speaking of CENTR (the Council of European National Top-Level Domain Registries) – a November report stated that new gTLDs are up 11 per cent:
“Overall, domains under the new gTLDs total some 22.5 million – up 11% from 1 year prior. While many new gTLDs are growing well, roughly one third of the top 300 have contracted over the year. Larger legacy gTLDs such as .net, .org and .info have also seen declines, while .com has been increasing its growth rates. New entrant .app exploded into the market in the middle of year and has around 320K domains so far.”
https://centr.org/library/library/statistics-report/centrstats-global-tld-report-2018-3.html
There’s a PDF link: “CENTRstats Global TLD Report 2018/3”.
Since then new gTLDs have leapt by about FOUR MILLION, as displayed at ntldstats.com. If you pull up the five year chart you can conduct your own technical analysis.
(You should see a chart with two sliders on the right. Pull the left slider all the way to the left and you should see the five year. The result is a consistent line of growth going up. (The “hump” can likely be explained by all the silly one penny registrations).
https://www.ntldstats.com/
There did seem to be a lack of awareness of the impact of discounting on domain name registration volumes. The successor to Famous Four Media, Global Registry Services Limited, decided to stop discounting from August 2018 and the number of new registrations in its flagship gTLD dropped considerably. Without discounting in the Chinese market driving the registrations, some of the larger new gTLDs may find 2019 difficult.