Back on March 19th we published an interview with Simon Cousins about the two extensions TLD Registry is rolling out the Chinese IDN for Online (.在线) as well as  Dot Chinese Website (中文网)

Back then Simon told TheDomains.com that:

“I would say we have a greater than 50% chance of both of our strings being in the top 5 new gTLD’s in terms of domain name registrations  at the end of landrush.”

Well it took a couple of days longer until the 1st day of general availability (GA) but  Simon’s was right

Just 50 minutes into GA we got this note from the Registry

Dot Chinese Online (.在线) xn--3ds443g | 54,011
Dot Chinese Website (.中文网) xn--fiq228c5hs | 38,838

This of course not puts  these two new gTLD into the top 5 it puts it Dot Chinese Online (.在线)  into the 1st position  passing .Guru and that is just within the 1st hour.

Congrats to the Registry

UPDATE

We got word from the registry later in the day that the initial reports they received from their back end provider included reserved domains

The numbers still make it the most successful first day new gTLD launch but here are the updated numbers:

Dot Chinese Online (.在线)
33,012 Domains under Management

Dot Chinese Website (.中文网)
17,537 Domains under Management

These numbers make Dot Chinese Online and Dot Chinese Website the two most-registered IDNs (#3 is .みんな — “everyone” in Japanese — with 3,455 names). By any measure, it was a good day for the TLD Registry!