Today someone asked me if I was interested in some .io domain names he was selling. They were just random LLL names no strong acronyms or anything like that. So I told him no and he asked me if the shine was off .io?
I told him I really have not heard that much .io news in 2022. But I wanted to check the data for 2022.
As we approach the halfway mark of 2022, .io sales along with .co are considerably off their 2021 pace. .io not so much in number of sales but in dollars generated.
In 2021 according to Namebio, there were 2,241 .io domain name sales. These sales brought in $4.2 million. Average sales price was $1,857. So far at the halfway point for 2022 they are at 1,277 sales (above the 2021 pace) but dollar wise they are only at $1.6m. The average sales price coming in at $1,065. 65 (5 were $100K plus) five figure plus .io domain sales in 2021, so far only 21 in 2022.
One thing to note is that Park.io seems to be focusing on other stuff like blockchain domains. They reported 1,208 sales in 2021 and just 136 in the first half of 2022. In the past, Mike at Park.io has been responsible for making many high value, premium .io domain name sales.
.Co
In 2021 Namebio shows 1,515 .co domain name sales. Dollar volume came in at $3.1m. Average price, $2,046. In the first half of 2022 .co has only registered 371 domain sales. Dollar value at $527,000. Average price down over $600 compared to 2021. 54 five figure sales in 2021 compared to 10 in 2022 so far.
.XYZ Stealing the shine?
One thing that stands out has been the shift to .xyz for crypto/blockchain related companies amongst others. If you look at the first half of 2022, .xyz sales have generated over $1m more than .io and .co combined.
Now that crypto has had a substantial correction with more volatility to come in the second of 2022, it will be interesting to see if .xyz can keep up in the second half of 2022.
One cannot deny that .xyz has taken sales from extensions like .io and .co. .io also has the ongoing debate about who should control the extension? The Chagossians believe it belongs to them and want it back.
What are your thoughts on .io and .co?
Someone flush the toilet please.
I think the decrease in .io sales would fit within a statistical margin of error, while the .co decline seems to be more significant.
.xyz has definitely had a moment for the past few months, but I suspect this was a bit of a bubble that has or is in the process of bursting.
They became greedy. A buyer inquired about a name from me in a tech field. I told him the .co was available for cheap .I am surprised he didn’t go for it,since they always claim they can register it in other extensions.Even the .io is also available 😀 .
Buyers are beginning to realize .Com is the go to.
Did they ever shine? When using other than .com very few remember the extension, they always try to go to the .com, if you don’t have a .com domain, you will certain drive traffic to it.
It very obvious .xyz is doing well in terms of awareness and sales since this year.lets see if it continues.
Eventually, Chagossians will win their case.
I believe a similar scenario played out with Libya a few years back, with their extension being used by many startups until they were booted off.
On the bright side, domainers that own the dot-Com equivalent of those on (.io) will see an increase in sales the moment Chagossians win the right to control their extension.
Thank you for the breakdown Raymond very well done it’s nice to see all the numbers in one place.
There is no doubt XYZ has taken from.io without XYZ a lot of those crypto companies would have been buying a.io for their project or company
Would be very beneficial to both domain investors holding .IO names *and* park.io themselves if all investors could sell their .IO names there….
Just for the record…I called the top on .io on an episode of DomainSherpa (and on Twitter I believe) PRECISELY!!! Almost to the month!
I tell people what is happening but most folks can’t overcome their own bias and refuse to listen.
If you are competing for #2 (.io, .co, .xyz, etc.) then you are always subject to trends, disruptions, etc. So once wholesale / trading prices start getting closer to end user prices, or end user prices get so high that they are no longer an attractive replacement for #1 (that threshold seems to be about 5:1), then whatever is #2 will get pushed out by a new entrant.
Will see, last year .io was reallly kicking. But a lot of it tied to crypto bull market. Hence we might see slow down. I would say 50% of domains in crypt is still .io, and about 30% .xyz and .com , 20% everything else. Hence the slow down is mainly because of market downturn, not appetite loss. The catch of course, how long the market will be down? Since .io is tech, but probably more than half purchases came from crypto market.
That said , i had 3 .io sales this year. While less than last year so far, it is still not bad.
i dont accept. all big .xyz sales some people do swetha.xyz. onlt swetha selling $xx.xxx .xyz domains. all other .xyz domains average max $x.xxx.
everyone see this if looking namebio.com.