Pinky Brand just published some bold predictions for the number of domain names that will exist in 2016 including registrations from new gTLD’s.
For those that don’t know, Pinky is one of the founders of .mobi, which is “today ranked in the top 30 off the roughly 268 existing TLDs worldwide with nearly 1.1 million active domains in the zone.”
“So what kind of market share can we expect by the end of—say 2016—from the new gTLDs? What kind of monthly ‘net new create’ numbers are needed for a single new gTLD to achieve a particular number by the end of 2016, assuming they can get 36 months of selling time by launching by January 2014? No one really knows, but I’ll take an educated stab at it.”
“If you take the 15 sponsored TLDs that have been added since 2001 (legacy ‘new TLDs’ if you will) and count their total number of registrations, they amount to less than 5% of the current total estimated number of 252 million names registered across 268 TLDs. ”
“The vast majority of that 5% is with .info, .biz and .mobi. I won’t dive in here as to their relevance or other issues for not grabbing a larger market share, just stating numerical facts.”
“Take away the withdrawn applications and contention sets and there is potential for an estimated 1,112 new gTLDs.
“Take away the IDNs, the dotBrands and ‘closed’ generics and you are left with about 256 potential ‘open generic’ new gTLDs in the marketplace, assuming contentions, objections and other delay and/or death mechanisms are resolved—but don’t count on that.”
So here’s where I think we might be at the end of 2016.
“I believe .com and legacy gTLD zone files will experience moderate but continually slowing annual growth, ending with 129.5M and 41.5M registrations respectively. ccTLDs will continue their fast annual growth, ending with 163.8M registrations.:
“But wait, what about the new gTLDs? Well, if applicants, the channel, and the industry as a whole do a bang-up job educating, marketing and selling their value props through existing and new channels—essentially hit the ball out of the park—we could see the global market share for new gTLDs in aggregate reach 18% by the end of 2016. I mean they/we/you would have to *kill* it to get to that point. That would be an achievement that means at least three times better performance in 3 years than what the legacy sponsored TLDs have achieved in the past 12 years.”
“That would mean an additional 73.6M new registrations in the marketplace—bringing us to a total of 408.5M names in all TLDs at the end of 2016.”
I believe the vast majority of the growth in global registration will come from open generics, as in 94% of that 18% market share.
So if you are an *average* new open gTLD, my estimate points to about 270K registrations in your zone at the end of 2016. Of course some will do better than average. If you do at least 5 times better than the average you’d be the next .co or .mobi. If you do at least THIRTY-SEVEN times better than the average you could be the next .org, .de or .co.uk.
No one in this business wants to be average, but to even get to my estimated average you’d have to sell 7,500 net new registrations every month for 36 months to get to 270K in my forecast model.
So do the math and get cracking with your marketing and sales plan if you want to be at least average or better with your channel and end user targets.
Hey Mike,
Thanks for the post. Didn’t think you’d post verbatim what I wrote on my blog! Anyway just to set the record straight I was not a ‘founder’ of .mobi. I came aboard as a consultant prior to launch and the headed up global sales for them.
Cheers,
Pinky
Pinky
I left a few paragraphs out but I think the predictions deserved to be in your own words with your own reasoning.
I really haven’t gotten my head around the numbers yet but I think the average number is going to be closer to 50K per
@Pinky B
What is your summation of the overall success, penetration, viabilty and acceptance in commerce of the .MOBI extension ??
Did it meet your expectations ?
cool, didnt know pinky had a blog.
interesting is the .MOBILE / .MOBI situation.. pretty clear cut example of a similar TLD.. not only does .MOBILE look somewhat similar which isnt that big of deal i guess but one of the .MOBILE applications is for the exact same purpose, isnt it?
and .mobi is an existing TLD! nevermind competing applications. this one exists.
well, the .mobi registry will have to remove this line from their website soon if it passes.. “the only ICANN approved mobile specific domain”
Hello MHB,
This Excess data will cause Massive , (Marketing Saturation Obsolescence) and will funnel confused Consumers to the .COM Channel of Trusted Acceptance.
This is tremendously Bullish for Prime .COM Holders.
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
…because people are incapable of learning new things and confusion doesnt exist in any part of the real world.
gotcha.
@JEFF SCHNEIDER,
Yes to the cause of the USEBIZ.COM funnel for Prime Profit Centers !!! The where of it so the Consumers will data find for us to them and with at some to all for (Marketing Saturation Obsolescence) ???
THANK YOU JEFF SCHNEIDER !!!
– WSJ
R. E. = ” …because people are incapable of learning new things ”
You have this Bass Ackwards,
People are capable of learning new things BUT it takes decades to trust and use them with any confidence or trust level.
This is just proven Marketing Doctrine.
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
@JEFF SCHNEIDER,
Yes for the capable trust any with the USEBIZ.COM !!! Some will say for the Profit Center of .com have with any proven Marketing Doctrine/ will to be it for so some all with to get like for it say the Virtual Business Portal ???
THANK YOU JEFF SCHNEIDER !!!
– WSJ
RE, Jeff Scheider: “People are capable of learning new things BUT it takes decades to trust and use them with any confidence or trust level.”
oh you mean decades like the “nearly 30 years of confidence consumers have in .com” that YOU constantly talk about?
so back in 1985 it would have been stupid to register generic .COMs cause it would have taken decades to become what it has today?
gotcha son. i gotcha.
@Pinky Brand:
Assumption: “if applicants, the channel, and the industry as a whole do a bang-up job educating, marketing and selling their value props through existing and new channels—essentially hit the ball out of the park”
Assumption: “they/we/you would have to *kill* it to get to that point.”
Assumption: “an achievement that means at least three times better performance in 3 years than what the legacy sponsored TLDs have achieved in the past 12 years”.
Conclusion: “we could see the global market share for new gTLDs in aggregate reach 18% by the end of 2016”
Conclusion: “if you are an *average* new open gTLD, my estimate points to about 270K registrations in your zone at the end of 2016”
Speculation: “If you do at least 5 times better than the average you’d be the next .co or .mobi. If you do at least THIRTY-SEVEN times better than the average you could be the next .org, .de or .co.uk.”
===========================
Similar logic:
If the Seahawks GM, coach and team do a bang-up job, hit it out of the park, kill it, do 3 times better than any team ever has before…
Then Russell Wilson will pass for 300 touchdowns and the Hawks will not only win the Superbowl, but the World Series, World Cup, and the Rose Bowl as well.
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Pinky, I don’t know what to say. You admit you use best-case-of-the-best-case scenes, then you draw conclusions from them as if they were reality.
People lost tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars supporting .Mobi, only to be abandoned when the fantasy ran out.
Must you continue, sir?
@Michael: As a statistical average I’m thinking best case somewhere around 65K per new gTLD (that’s including all the IDNs, dotBrands, geos and closed generics.
@ the others who left specific questions for me and whose identity is unknown:
‘JNET’ : My summary is that it did meet my expectations in some ways—and in others it did not. A lot was learned about the risks and the rewards of doing something that basically no one had ever done before in the domain registry business. After 8 years it remains in business employing 20+ people in an actual physical office.
‘ontheinterweb’: .mobile is in contention among some heavy hitters. It could be awhile before it gets resolved and we see an attempt to execute any related business model. FYI Afilias, which owns .mobi, is the sole applicant for the Chinese IDN version of same that passed IE and should be among the first of the new gTLDs to be delegated because of a very favorable priority number. China has the fastest growing mobile market in the world and has been good to .mobi.
‘Accent’: I’m not sure if you read my entire post as posted on my site, it might give you a bit more background on what I was trying to convey.
Perhaps my final paragraphs failed to illustrate a point, one which is: I think an 18% global market share for all the new gTLDs combined is what I think is the best we can hope for (by YE 2016). It probably won’t be that number, but it could be achieved if everyone gets their act together as an industry and on an individual applicant level.
Of course this is my speculation as it relates to doing 5 times or 17 times better than a statistical average. Perhaps I failed to illustrate another point along that line, which is: If you got into the TLD registry business thinking you were going to be the next .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz, .co, .me or .mobi from a registration volume standpoint you’ve got a lot to think about and execute in order to beat historical performance in this business of any non-CNO TLD + an my admittedly optimistic and theoretical statistical average for open generic TLDs which are only a subset of the entire 1,100+ new gTLDs that could launch.
People will continue to make and/or lose money with their domain name industry related business models. I will continue.
Pinky:
Perhaps it is fitting that the Mobility forum, central hangout for .Mobi domain owners, appears to have closed down concurrently with your article.
My point is that you are exaggerating your estimates by using best-case assumptions. This is misleading to people who consider you an authority. I have seen your exaggerations before and the experience was expensive.
———-
Talk of “average” new gTLDs makes no sense to me. Mike has published a list of pre-registration numbers here:
thedomains(
dot)com/2013/01/19/top-50-most-requested-new-gtlds-domain-names-the-one-with-the-most-apps-is-49th/
Web is first, then the pre-orders fall off dramatically:
4th) .HOTEL (about 24% of .Web’s pre-registrations)
13th) .LONDON (about 9% of .Web). And on down the list. Most get only a trickle of interest.
Amazon and Google can outbid anyone else. It seems likely these two will end up with nearly all the top gTLDs. It may be possible to make money on one of the scraps left by G and A, but … far below “average”.
.