In releasing its 2016 operating budget ICANN made some estimate for the purposes of budgeting revenue from new gTLD’s.
ICANN is saying its “Best” estimate is that the average renewal rate will be 50% for new gTLD’s except for TLD’s that provided free registrations where the renewal rate was estimated at 25%.
On The Low estimate the ICANN seems to be indicating a new gTLD renewal rate of 35% but does not break out the free registrations from paid registrations so that number should have contained a Low estimate of renewals of free domains which arguable should be 10%.
The free renewals being so low is obvious based on people grabbing what they can and then spending a year working out which ones may have value, not to mention crap domains being snagged for (most likely) dodgy one shot use (spam/scams)
The other side of the coin is facing a suddenly expensive renewal which they may have over looked. Premium names especially becoming a bit less desirable when you have to pay the same high fee again…and again.
I look at what I have picked up and could well be dropping 50% as not worth my time and a further 25% as not worth the yearly expense.
So for my own experience…I would have to agree.
Well we know their original sales projections were short by 90% so I would expect them to screw this up too. Perhaps more like 5%, 3.5% and 2.5%.
The .Bike names I dropped reappeared available after the 60-day ICANN redemption period except for Endurance.Bike, a name I dropped after a year of ownership, now has a DPML block on it. Wondering if the DPML block was placed prior to the drop, waiting to take effect if the name enters redemption.
Now the bicycle industry is blocked from it’s most prevalent category of bikes due to a TM holder in an unrelated class of goods and services.
Thanks to TheDomains for providing the right place to present this discovery.
Sometimes one has to wonder if the people making such predictions understand the gTLD markets and dynamics.
I predict all to be out of business shortly.
Seriously? As low as these numbers are, no way will renewals be that high. I’m thinking 3%, 2% and 1%, if that much. Think about it. Why would anyone pay to continue to reserve a worthless gtld name knowing that they have absoluelty no value to anyone other than attorneys?
ICANN seems to be favoring domain users and not domain speculators forgetting that domain users must register multiple domains to protect their domains.
Its all about getting respect. and I do not see the ntlds getting any nor do I see anyone renewing renewing their ntld. They are silly and its not like they are cheap too. For less money, I can get a well respected .com or .net. Even .biz gets more respect.
These estimates are a bit on the low side. We’re seeing an average renewal rate of 67% over the 69 Donuts TLDs that are in renewal at the moment. A spread from 54.88% (.equipment 504 days GA) to 77.14% (.email 462 days GA). .Guru has a renewal rate of about 58%.
These figures are estimates and based on the number of domains that have not been renewed 45 days after expiry (which is why I’m quoting the GA days for context). It takes a month or so for the figures to settle as more domains pass their one year+45 days mark. I guess for the purpose of revenue planning ICANN needs to be conservative, anything above is a bonus.