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Domain Name Wire | Domain Name News

Domain Name Industry News

Featured Domains

A look at .Net in China

by Kassey Lee — December 13, 2019 Uncategorized 2 Comments

.Net faces a lot of competition in China.

In my series of articles to study the Chinese domain market, I have already covered the big picture, .cn, and .com. Today, let’s look at .net. This analysis is based on data I have collected from China Internet Network Information Center reports published since 1997.

Pie chart showing selection of top level domains in China

The chart shows a breakdown of domains registered in China as of December, 2018. As you can see, .net accounts for a mere 2.9% or 1.1 million domains. While .cn and .com are considered mainstream extensions by corporate China, .net is often looked upon as just a niche extension.

Chart showing the number of registered .net domains in China

The chart shows moderate growth over the years. The surge in 2015 and 2016 might have been result of the “Chips” boom centered around .com but spreading to other extensions. In the last two years, however, growth has gone down. Long term, the .net extension faces tough challenges because Chinese companies tend to stick to .com and .cn, and there is added competition from many similar extensions introduced in the last few years, such as:

  1. .site
  2. .online
  3. .website
  4. .network
  5. .wang
  6. .网址

Of particular concern are .wang and .网址. The former is a Pinyin word (网= net) and the latter is a Chinese IDN extension which means “net address”. Both extensions are very similar to .net semantically. So, there is a lot of choices for end users if they want something related to the net or network, which is not good for .net.

Nonetheless, there is still hope – albeit a small one. Although there is no company listed in the 2018 Top 100 Chinese Internet Companies Report using .net in its corporate domain, this changes in the 2019 list where No. 84 Loyo (a game developer) owns the matching Loyo.net. Will corporate adoption of .net increase? Time will tell.

In short, .net is a very small segment in the Chinese domain market, but some demand from end users does exist, as shown in the case of Loyo.net.

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2 Comments Tags: .net, china

China loves .Com

by Kassey Lee — December 11, 2019 Uncategorized 6 Comments

Kassey Lee examines the market for .com domain names in China.

In my series of articles to study the Chinese domain market, I have already covered the big picture and. Today, let’s look at .com. This analysis is based on data I have collected from China Internet Network Information Center reports published since 1997.

Pie chart showing selection of top level domains in China

The chart shows a breakdown of domains registered in China as of December, 2018. However, do not be misled by the numbers and conclude that .com is less important than .cn. It’s actually the opposite. Although smaller in number, .com is king in corporate China and has achieved the highest prices in domain sale. A small sample is listed below.

  1. Voice.com was sold for $30 million to Hong Kong-based block.one in 2019.
  2. 360.com was sold for $17 million to Beijing-based Qihoo 360 in 2015.
  3. Le.com was sold for $10 million to Beijing-based Le TV in 2015.
  4. We.com was sold for $8 million to Beijing-based Ren Ren Dai in 2015.
  5. Vivo.com was sold for $2.1 million to Guangdong-based Vivo in 2015.

Chart showing the number of .com domains registered to people in China

The chart shows that .com is generally on the up trend. The number of .com domains registered as of December 2018 was 12.8 million. However, note that there are still many Chinese owned domains located overseas. For example, Voice.com, Baidu.com, Tencent.com, JD.com, and DJI.com are all registered in the US. Therefore, the actual number should be much higher.

A particular event needs to be mentioned. In 2015, someone invented an investment theme called “chips” ([Chi]nese + [P]remium in plural form). It refers to a domain not containing the aeiouv letters — which was soon expanded to include numbers not having 0 and 4. Such domains were promoted as being more valuable. Speculators flocked in and registered a lot of random .com domains in 5L, 6N, 7N, and other types. The “chips” boom ended in 2017 with a dip. Nevertheless, growth returned in 2018.

Long term, I see a very solid .com domain segment in China. The love for .com is deep rooted in corporate China and will likely remain so unless there is drastic change in the regulations to disfavor .com. On the other hand, note that Chinese love speculation, so let me end by speculating that new investment themes will pop up and many more speculative booms will appear. The 2015 “chips” boom is only a preview of what is to come.

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6 Comments Tags: .com, china

A four character domain for $16,500? Here’s why

by Kassey Lee — December 9, 2019 Expired Domains 5 Comments

Kassey Lee explains why this seemingly random combination is valuable in China.

Screenshot of the website at 23zw.com in 2011

Here’s how 23zw.com looked in 2011 when an air conditioning company owned it.

It’s no fun watching the 4 character (4C) domain space everyday to see prices of many of these domains selling for only $10 to $20. However, once in a while, when a spectacular sale does occur, I want to know more about the domain. This happened last month when 23ZW.com sold for $16,500.

In fact, 23ZW.com has a rich history related to China. Wayback Machine at Archive.org indicates that the domain was first recorded in 2011. In that year, 23ZW.com was the corporate domain of An Shan Zhong Wang (鞍山众旺), a manufacturer of residential and commercial air conditioners. Here, 23 rhymes with An Shan (鞍山 = a city name in the Liaoning province) and ZW is an acronym for Zhong Wang (众旺 = multitude of prosperity). So, 23ZW matched the company name.

A year later, the domain was probably dropped. In December 2013, 23ZW.com was turned into a fiction portal called Ao Shi Zhong Wen Wang (傲世中文网). Here, 23 rhymes slightly with Ao Shi (傲世 = very proud) and ZW is an acronym for Zhong Wen (中文 = Chinese). Again, 23ZW was used in a meaningful way.

In April this year, the site displayed a message to direct readers to their new site 23ZW.me as 23ZW.com would be closed soon. In May 23ZW.com displayed only a simple landing page with links to some Chinese betting sites. 23ZW.com displayed the message “This domain name expired on 26/10/2019 and is pending renewal or deletion.” last month, so I guess the owner simply let the domain expire.

The history of 23ZW.com shows that this 4C domain was used in a genuine way by end users in China. Similar use of 4C domains can also be found in the 2018 Top 100 Chinese Internet Companies Report. Two companies on the list are using 4C domains.

One is 21CN.com, which is one of the top 10 portals in China. This domain is owned by 21CN (世纪龙信息), a subsidiary of China Telecom. Here, 21 refers to the 21st century and CN probably means “China”. Another one is 52TT.com which is owned by TT Yu Yin (TT语音), a social game developer. While I could not find any explanation for the domain, 52 rhymes with Wo Yao (我要 = I want) and TT may refer to names of some characters in a game.

As the examples of 23ZW.com, 21CN.com, and 52TT.com show, 4C domains do have genuine demand from end users in China—if they meaningful.

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5 Comments Tags: .domains, 23zq.com, china, godaddy auctions

A look at the Chinese domain market by domain choice

by Kassey Lee — December 6, 2019 Uncategorized 6 Comments

Kassey Lee provide an overview of domain extension use in China.

In my previous article Chinese domain market – the big picture, I highlighted the overall demand and supply of domains in China and concluded that there is great potential in this market. Now, I want to dig deeper and look at several important domain extensions. Let’s start with .cn. This analysis is based on data I have collected from China Internet Network Information Center reports published since 1997.

Pie chart showing domain extension breakdown in China

The chart shows a breakdown of domains registered in China as of December, 2018. As you can see, .cn captures the largest share: 56.0% or 21 million domains. This leading position has remained unchanged since 2007, so .cn will likely continue to be the largest domain extension in China for the foreseeable future. However, number does not equal value. Even though .cn has the number, corporations in China actually prefer .com and are willing to pay high prices for .com domains. (I’ll talk about it in the next article.)

Chart showing growth of .cn domain

The chart shows that registrations grew very slowly in the early years. Some likely reasons are late awareness of the internet in China, registration restricted to corporations only, complicated registration requirements, and simply bureaucracy. Note that .cn was released in 1990 while major country extensions such as .uk, .de, and .jp, were launched in 1985/86.

In the early days, only subdomains of certain types were available for registration, such as com.cn, net.cn, org.cn, gov.cn, and edu.cn. Subdomains on com.cn became the dominant category. In 2003, the rules changed and second level domains (e.g. Baidu.cn) could also be registered in addition to subdomains (e.g. Baidu.com.cn). Then, registration was opened to individuals, and investors outside China could also participate.

This culminated in a great boom in 2007 when lots of investors flocked in, lured by aggressive pricing of $1 or even less in registration fees. However, the boom came to an abrupt stop when the rules changed. In 2010, the Chinese government started requiring owners of .cn domains to submit their identification information such as photo
and ID. This upset a lot of investors, particularly those outside China. As a result, they simply let their domains expire.

The .cn market recovered two years later when domain owners became used to the new rules. This was further helped by China’s growing economy with startups springing up everywhere. In 2013, .cn registrations doubled. Since then, growth has remained on the up trend.

Pie chart showing breakdown of .cn domain registrations

China differs from many countries such as the United Kingdom and Japan where subdomains on co.uk and co.jp, respectively, are the standard. In China, subdomains account for only a small number. For example, using data for 2018, you can see .cn captures 87.4% while com.cn secures only 10.1%, net.cn 1.2%, and org.cn 0.7%. The remaining adm.cn, gov.cn, ac.cn, and edu.cn all together take up less than 1%. In other words, Chinese prefer one dot (e.g. Baidu.cn). This will help moving toward a global domain naming style of just one dot to make it easier for consumers to remember.

In summary, .cn is No.1 in terms of volume in China. If you want to invest in .cn domains, remember 3 things: (1) be aware of the ID requirements, (2) pay attention to any rule change made by the Chinese government, and (3) remember the one-dot preference.

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6 Comments Tags: china, Chinese domain names

Some long numeric domains may work in corporate China

by Kassey Lee — November 6, 2019 Uncategorized 0 Comments

Long numeric domains can work in China, but not usually.

The letter N repeated eight times on a blue background

Generally speaking, long numeric domains are difficult to remember and use for Chinese companies. However, like anything in life, there are always exceptions. A small number of long numeric domains may work if they are meaningful.

Some Chinese companies use numeric domains. For example, in the 2018 Top 100 Chinese Internet Companies Report (2018年中国互联网企业100强分析报告), the following seven companies use numeric domains.

  • 360.com by 360 Total Security
  • 58.com by 58.com
  • 2345.com by 2345.com
  • 37.com by 37 Games
  • 4399.com by 4399
  • 6.cn by 6Rooms
  • 253.com by Chuang Lan 253

However, note that these names are all four digits or fewer. Therefore, I consider any domain longer than four digits as a long numeric domain. A long numeric domain is difficult to use unless you can create meaning for consumers to associate the two. A good example is a domain sold recently in a domain auction: 365765.com.

This name is interesting if you break it into two parts: 365 and 765. They roll off the tongue when said in Chinese. When I saw this domain, I decided to use the rhyming method to see if I could create meaning for it. In other words, I tried to find Pinyin phrases that sound similar to the numbers. The result is shown below.

365765 = 想礼物,取礼物 (Xiang Li Wu, Qu Li Wu = Think of gifts, take the gifts)

The “comma” makes it easier to say in Chinese. This domain may be used for a gift-related business.

Be aware that rhyming means the resulted Chinese phrase sounds similar to but not exactly as the number. A certain imagination is required. Also, when this number is used outside China, its meaning will be lost. For this reason, I have not seen any long numeric domain used by major Chinese brands. Long numeric domains are likely used for trading among speculators but not sold to end users.

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0 Comments Tags: china, Chinese domains

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