Chinese investors account for more than half of the ownership of all registered new gTLDs (54%).

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In their latest newsletter, Sedo gave some insight into why the Chinese are hoarding domain names.

Chinese Investors are Hoarding Web Addresses

Currently Chinese investors account for more than half of the ownership of all registered new gTLDs (54%).

This growing trend greatly effects global trade, says Matthias Meyer-Schönherr, Vice President Business Development of Sedo.com, the world´s largest domain marketplace.

“The domain name market is, in a lot of ways, similar to the real estate market:

Figuratively speaking, Chinese investors are securing new properties, while also purchasing existing top locations. Each domain name is unique – that’s why it´s not surprising that most short, catchy and easy-to-remember .com domains are sold for millions of dollars on the Chinese market.”

 

 

About Raymond Hackney

Raymond is a writer, domain trader and consultant based in Pennsylvania. Raymond is the founder of 3Character.com and TLDInvestors.com.

Comments

  2. ada says

    It seems Frank Schilling registered more new Tlds on Cayman Islands than the whole France, Canada, Japan,……

  4. Truths says

    1) “Going forward, finding a great domain name will most likely involve a seller from China.”

    Not true. While the Chinese have made inroads at the top of the market, the vast majority of domains suitable for western end-users are held by westerners and this will be the case for a long time to come.

    2) “Domain trading is a lucrative and future-oriented business, as demonstrated by our latest Sedo numbers: registering a new gTLD domain has an average price of 60 USD. In comparison, the average sales price of premium new gTLDs at Sedo’s marketplace is 1,500 USD. The prospects of achieving such a high return on investment make domain trading rewarding and profitable.”

    These numbers do not add up. Since only 1-2% of a domain portfolio sells per year, 2 sales at $1500 each less the typical 20% commission do not outweigh 100 registrations at $60 each. Just sayin.

    3) One can argue whether new gtlds will be a good place to invest for future returns. But if you take a look at the specific domains the Chinese are registering in the new gtld space, the vast majority of it is absolute junk. Domainers who make investment decisions based on what the Chinese are doing would be best advised to heed the adage, “caveat emptor.”

  5. domainer says

    Sounds like they are making the typical ‘newbie’ mistake.

    Do you remember when you did it? We all did it.

    I remember back in the early 2000’s , I bought and reg’d a bunch of .us, .biz, .info, and .mobi – thinking I was in on the ground floor. I remained on the ground floor with them. Only thing that was a solid investment – premium .com.

    A couple years from now, the newbie Chinese domain investors will learn that premium.com would have been the best solid investment. Everything else was a gamble. If they spent the same money in Macau, at least, they would be comp’d at the casino.

  7. Domo Sapiens says

    in top of it add the ones owned by the registrars and similar hoarders (Cayman).. and there is no much left.

  8. Gabriel says

    You dot com loyalists are truly annoying. Face the music, it is what it is. Many of these new Gtlds’ will become the norm and dot coms holders will have to decrease prices.

  10. Reality says

    Those of us who have been around a few years have seen this all before; the noobs telling everyone how it will be different this time. Guess what? It wasn’t different 20 years ago in 1996 when .TV launched, or 19 years ago when .CC launched, or 15 years ago when .BIZ and .INFO launched, or 12 years ago when IDN domains launched, or 11 years ago when .MOBI launched, or 10 years ago when .ME launched, or six years ago when .CO launched… Keep up the desperate pumping though.

  11. Domain Mouse says

    gTLDs that are an exact-match to highly searched for terms receive type-in traffic in-excess of the .com equivalent domain where both names are undeveloped. Does no one realise this yet?!

      • Cowabunga says

        They do not recieve type in traffic in excess of a .com but you can actually register some. You can buy keyword gtld’s at GA price and they do work. EMD searches are not some new invention but usually the .com of a strong keyword(s) would have been registered and either be being used or up for sale on the private market.

        Gtlds have skewed slightly from their original purpose/goal, which was to allow people to register succinct and memorable domains (and to make ICANN some money) but that was the Chinese market appearing out of no where and buying domains most of us would value at less than nothing. It will stabalise long term and the cycle will repeat iself, all the best keyword domains will be gone, then we have the next round of applications in 2020…

  13. Mark Jeftovic says

    China’s economy is basically collapsing and everybody with money is frantically trying to circumvent capital controls and get as much out as possible before a hard landing. In other words, I don’t see “Chinese demand” as being viable long term (or even medium term), be that for real estate or *laugh* domain names. The government however, is continues to buy gold hand over fist….

  14. Bob says

    E-money/E-currency is and will Totally become the new global monetary standard, not Gold. China can buy all the gold it wants to as it will not change anything. 2015.75

    • Mark Jeftovic says

      There’s a place for bitcoin and crypto-currencies for sure, but hard assets will never become irrelevant.

  15. DNFlorida says

    Trump.et or Hillario.us? McAfee or Norton. Key-words or brandable creations? Right-Of-The-Dot (gTLD’s) or Dot-On-A-Different-Spot (nTLD’s)? BollywoodDomains(.)com or Bollywood(.)Domains? The .com is stil ‘reigning’ but then again, the latter is a shorter version. You’re all right but then again.. maybe you’re all wrong! To me, some of the nTLD’s make sense, others … no rime, no reason. Time-will-tell! Guys, let’s just EAT chinese. Let ‘them’ buy my names, .. sorry … our names (because we have enough of their .. ‘valuables’ in our homes already).Keep an eye on guys like the artist currently known as ‘most wanted NO-names’. During my nTLD search ‘n research i stumbled (unexpected.ly) on some well known names in ‘domainers-world’. I mean .. check the left/Right side of your monitor. Someone besides .me, .us & Fox Mulder .. still believes!