What these name choices should tell domain name investors

China is a market for your domain names. Even if they are English names.

Common knowledge is that Chinese companies own Chinese brand names. Even foreign companies follow this rule when operating in China. For example, Amazon is Ya Ma Xun (亚马逊); Apple is Pin Guo (苹果); and Tesla is Te Si La (特斯拉).

So, it may surprise you to see a Chinese company operating without a Chinese brand name. This actually happens often, and one example is the fitness startup Fiture, which I read about in the news a few days ago.

Fiture was founded in March 2019 to provide at-home physical exercises through intelligent hardware and AI-based programs. There is also an element of social networking to create a virtual group training atmosphere.

The startup received $6 million in angel investment in late 2019, followed by a $65 million Series A funding round last month.

“Fiture” is both its English and Chinese brand. It is a made-up name derived from “fit”, which is appropriate for a fitness company.

Fiture’s corporate domain is the brand-matching Fiture.com. According to Wayback Machine, the domain was owned by a Japanese investor from 2004 to 2019 until it was transferred to the fitness company. At one time, Fiture.com was part of a group of 6 domains of the same name in various extensions for sale at $25,000. The investor probably never thought Fiture.com would be sold to China!

Fiture is not the only case. Just in recent months, I have come across the following Chinese startups without Chinese brand names. The lack of a Chinese brand name does not seem to hinder their growth, as evidenced by their ability to raise rounds of funding.

Chinese Brand	Business	Funding	Domain
Hachibot	Robotics	$10m	Hachibot.com
Hey Maet	Plant-base meats	$1.5m	Heymaet.com
Moka	Recruitment	$44m	Mokahr.com

Did you spot any domain opportunity here? Moka has the need to upgrade to Moka.com. If you were the owner of Moka.com (not likely as it is a developed site already), you could sell the domain to this Chinese company.

There are Chinese companies using only English brand names. There are even more Chinese companies using both Chinese and English brand names. Together, they mean there’s a great need for English-based names.

What is the implication? There is demand for English-based domains in China, and the demand will only intensify when more and more Chinese companies move into the digital economy driven by the 900 million internet consumers. Therefore, make sure you list your domains at a marketplace with retail outlets also in China.