Kassey Lee analyzes how Chinese registrars account for a large portion of new top level domain registrations.
New top level domain names, such as .best, .rich, and .guru, began rolling out at the end of 2013.
According to nTLDstats.com, there are about 34 million new top level domains registered across 1,187 new extensions at 372 registrars. The site also displays a list of the 372 registrars and their market shares. For our study, I have selected the top 10 registrars, as shown below.
Rank | Registrar | Domains | Share |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Alibaba | 5,426,279 | 15.90% |
2 | GoDaddy | 3,253,218 | 9.53% |
3 | NameCheap | 2,827,229 | 8.28% |
4 | West263 | 2,742,342 | 8.04% |
5 | GMO | 2,150,271 | 6.30% |
6 | West.cn | 1,839,191 | 5.39% |
7 | Eranet | 1,717,788 | 5.03% |
8 | WebNic.cc | 1,435,744 | 4.21% |
9 | NameSilo | 800,547 | 2.35% |
10 | CentralNic | 767,804 | 2.25% |
Because West263 also belongs to West.cn, essentially two Chinese registrars — Alibaba and West.cn — together capture about 29% of the new extensions. Chinese domain investors have been active since the early launches of new extensions. This might have been because there was a feeling that they were late to the .com game, so they hoped to lead in the new frontier of the domain space. New top level domain registries also pitched new TLDs as an investment in China and often offered low-priced registrations in the region.
While it is still debatable whether the new extensions are a success or not, there have been some great sales. In 2019, for example, Free.games was sold for $335,000, ZB.app for $91,000, and Business.club for $60,936. You can find more sales data at Namebio.
As years go by, it is becoming difficult to justify still calling these extensions “new.” Unfortunately, so far, there is no consensus on what to call them, so they’ll remain to be called “new” extensions.
lifesavings.online says
Oh, suddenly now you can come up with ‘stats’!!!
About a year ago you wrote an article here showing PIE GRAPH / market share of all TLD in your bid to promote .com as the clear leader. You sited .cn and such too, but you explained .com was obviously king, as it gobbled something like 70% your graph of all TLD owned by chinese.
Us in the comment pointed out, there were MORE nTLD that .com REGISTERED to china, and you dismissed us! You said there is no evidence to back it, no ‘clear’ data.
Many OTHER of our comments, on similar discussions pointed out your MISLEADING ‘data while pointing to chinese TLDS, such .wang. Moderators chose to remove our comments of TRUTH in order to keep the ILLUSION you wish to PEDDLE.
You are full .com PROPAGANDISTS, disregard for truth. Only using ‘facts’ when they suit your daily agenda / pocketbook.
This site is so fake, fake info. This blog is a JOKE. You said yourself, this data is impossible to determine if chinese registrants or not LOLOLOLOL! EAT CROW.
Misleading, liar devils about!
Kassey Lee says
I’m not paid to promote any extension. I write about what I see in the domain market, and of course I have been wrong in my investment decision. The first extension I invested was .mobi. I believed in .mobi so much that I invested heavily in it for several years. I lost my money. Then I found opportunity in .com and so started investing in .com. I’m aware there are investors who have shown success in other extensions, which is good too.
lifesavings.online says
Okay well thank you for being cool and calm. I still am annoyed you ignored nTLD. In the past you showed what domains are register in china and ignored ALL the nTLD all the time! Made it look like .com is the only market!
Now this blog is suddenly promoting it after skewed / ignored data in the past. Now all the good ones are bought up and suddenly this blog is promoting nTLD…HMM.
Further, on almost EVERY thread in recent past, .com TROLLS were allowed to post their propaganda in each and every thread. Now there are no trolls even, everyone left!
Wonder why? You were all wrong about nTLD. This blog published the propaganda and those of us that pointed out facts and misleading posts/comments had our comments REMOVED.
It was unfair to say the least, biased and actually gross. Now you all want to talk about nTLD and such, where are the trolls, what happened? Got a new financial backer here to promote nTLD?
This domain name wire was wrong about nTLD ALL along. I’ll be here forever to point that out. Mislead domain investors the WHOLE WAY.
Kassey Lee says
When I come across an interesting news story, I use it to write an article, so I don’t limit myself to just .com. For example, I have written the following articles about other extensions.
“How are new gTLDs doing in China?”
I worte about .cc in the article “Two interesting .cc domain sales”
“<a href='A startup changed its domain from .com to .top”
“Is .icu actively used in corporate China?”
I think the choice of extension depends on the scope of your audience. If you a local plumber in Austin, Texas, maybe Austin.plumbing is good enough. If you are serving the whole world such as Apple, then .com will be appropriate. So, different extensions can serve different purposes.
David says
Have spoken to Mr. Lee a number of times, he is not only sincere with his opinion and thoughts but a very knowledgeable person, fluent in a number of languages, that has lived in many countries.
His opinions are free of any vested interest or fees by any extension.