Thursday, August 23, 2018

New Domain Extension Sales July 23 – Aug 22, 2018

Each month I take a look at "new" global top level domain (ngTLD) sales reported in the NameBio database over the previous 30 days. The reporting period started slow, but picked up momentum in the past couple of weeks.  While the average price ($2549) is down from the previous report ($3372), as is the median price, by every other metric this reporting period was substantially stronger than all previous reporting periods since I began this monthly series just over half a year ago. The number of sales (167) is substantially up from the previous period (102), as is the number of different extensions seeing at least one sale (37 vs 19 in previous report), and the total dollar value of sales ($425,600).  There are also more high value ($10,000 or more) sales this month, with 12 versus 7 in the previous reporting period.

Summary


During the monthly period ending Aug 22, 2018 there were
  • 167 NameBio recorded ngTLD domain name sales with $425,600 total value.
  • The average sales price was $2549, while the median price was $649.
  • In terms of major sales, 12 were for $10,000 or more (69 were for $1000 or more).
  • There were sales during the month in 37 different extensions, Although .top dominated again with 65 of the sales, the extensions .bid, .club, .global, .online and .webcam all saw 5 or more sales during the month.
  • The highest sale during the month was bg.top which sold for $51,187.
  • There were new extension sales during the month at 16 different venues, plus one private sale.  Flippa was the location for 72 of the sales while 13 were at Sedo.
  • While the registries dominated high value sales (at least 6 of the top 12 sales), in total numbers there was a strong majority of non-registry sales.
  • So far in 2018 there have been 793 ngTLD sales in total listed on NameBio, with an average sales price of $5007, accounting for a total of $4.0 million. 


Extension Breakdown


Here is the breakdown by number of domain sales reported in each extension during this monthly reporting period.
  • app 2
  • bid 6
  • bio 1
  • cash 1
  • center 1
  • club 9
  • cricket 1
  • dance 1
  • date 2
  • download 1
  • fun 4
  • fund 1
  • fit 1
  • global 5
  • gold 1
  • life 3
  • loan 3
  • media 1
  • men 3
  • news 1
  • one 1
  • online 10
  • party 2
  • place 2
  • review 4
  • science 2
  • site 2
  • space 3
  • style 1
  • stream 2
  • tech 4
  • top 65
  • trade 3
  • webcam 5
  • website 3
  • win 3
  • xyz 3


The Highest Sales


Here is a list of the major sales for the reporting period. 
  • bg.top $51,187
  • bl.top $46,847
  • coin.store $26,705
  • Mr.global $20,000
  • AirConditioning.online $19,500
  • token.xyz $14,999
  • xyz.top $10,910
  • caijing.top $10,183
  • win.tech $10,000
  • origin.tech $10,000
  • ado.tech $10,000
  • bot.app $9,999
We included the $9,999 .app sale even though it was $1 under our formal barrier for inclusion.  If we look at the top sales for 2018 YTD only bg.top would make the top 10 (in 10th place).  The package deal of .news domain names would have placed in this list, actually dominating the numbers if listed individually.  Although they were announced in this period, the actual sales date was 2017 (or possibly earlier as I discuss). 

Names That Span Dot Effectively


Some of the domain names from this reporting period that I personally feel make excellent use of the extension as congruent with the domain name include win.tech, pure.gold, live.fit, link.global, Mr.global, coin.store, food.style, mail.place, reset.top, shares.place, growth.online and counselling.online, among many others this month. While I understand why some shorter names, and those with high value keywords,  sold for higher prices, I think these names do a great job of 'spanning the dot'  to effectively take advantage of the new extensions.  It will be interesting to see the websites that develop on these names. Why not look through the entire list and pick your own favourites?   I wrote a previous report on one of these domain names, A Domain Name That Is Pure Gold, speculating on who might find value in the domain name.

Year to Date 


So far in 2018 there have been 793 NameBio reported ngTLD sales with an average sales price of $5007.  Note that this is as NameBio report sales dates  with both home.loans for $500,000 and The.club for $300,000 listed as 2018 sales, since they were reported in 2018, even though the sales agreements were completed in 2017. On the other hand, vacation.rentals that sold for $500,300 is not reported in 2018 in their database.

The total value of 2018 reported ngTLD sales up to the day of writing (Aug 23, 2018) is $4.0 million. In terms of number of ngTLD sales, the rate is slightly up from that recorded in 2017, although the total value of ngTLD sales, if it continues at current rate through the rest of the year, will be somewhat higher than last year that saw $5.2 million in total new extension sales.

I have stressed the importance of scaling in any domain name analysis.  Yes, .com dominates, but the vast majority of domains for sale are also .com.  If you take the sum of .net plus .org, together their registration numbers (about 14.1 and 10.3 million) are just under 25 million, just slightly more than all ngTLDs combined.  I therefore thought it would be interesting to compare the dollar value (as of Aug 23, 2018) of 2018 YTD (on NameBio).  For .net it is $1.6 million and for .org $2.0 million, for a total of $3.6 million, very comparable to the $4.0 million in ngTLD sales YTD.  In number of sales, however, .net and .org are much higher (1617 and 2560 respectively vs only 793 YTD ngTLD sales).

Discussion


I find it a really encouraging trend that so many new extensions now have recorded sales on the major after market venues, and that the value end (typically hundreds of dollars) is well represented in this report.  I am not sure why, but Flippa has only recently emerged as a major venue for sales in that price range for the new extensions. These do not appear to be registry sales, and I am not clear why the sudden change.  If you have information please share it with me.

Generally we who concentrate on the new extensions have urged domain investors to mainly consider only single word names which match well with the extension.  While I still think that is good advice, it must be said that multiple word domains have sold in the new extensions in this report, sometimes for good amounts (e.g., AirConditioning.online for $19,500, MyWorld.online for $2699, SoftwareDestiny.download for $650). A number of the value end sales this month were multiple words as well.

Many extensions saw their first NameBio recorded domain name sale in this report. For example the relatively new .fun extension had never had a NameBio recorded sale, and now they have four! There was other good news for that extension lately as Ron Jackson has reported.   There are still many new extensions without a single NameBio recorded sale, of course. I discuss the extensions seeing new sales at value end, and why I regard it as so positive, in this post. The drop of the average sales price is simply an indication that the high premium sales are being balanced by a large number of sales at the low end.

This was a solid month for .club, and in addition as their CEO reports there are many sales happening that are not reported here. That extension just released a promising financial report showing strong company growth.

The former Famous Four extensions, now under new management, seem already to be gaining respect, as a number of their extensions saw their first or early NameBio recorded resales in this report.  The sales appear, for the most part, to be regular domain names and not premium ones, with the majority of sales prices less than $250 and words with local meaning or multiple word domains. I have discussed this in more detail here.

Some may be surprised that the median price ($649) is not higher.  Many overlook the fact that median prices in almost any extension are routinely much less than the average price.  For example, on the day I am writing this (Aug 23, 2018) the median sales price in .com for the day is $249 and in .org it is $172, even though the average prices for the same day are $953 (.com) and $242 (.org).  If you excluded the registry sales, the new extensions in this report would probably have a median in the $400 range, which is a a reasonable value. Some experts in the field point out that NameBio sales figures are biased down, since many of the end user sales are not included, while many domainer to domainer sales, especially from GoDaddy, play a big role in the database. I think this is a logical argument, probably influencing all extensions.

The .top extension continues to lead, in registrations, sales and high value reported sales. Because of when they report, frequently .top sales miss the NameBio daily domain report, even though they get in the NameBio database and most make this monthly report. Just examining the NameBio Daily Report can bias your perceptions of sales in some extensions.

There are other encouraging signs for the new extension domain world which I have commented on previously.  One  of them is that while it used to be the case that some days had zero ngTLD sales, there has not been such a day for the last 31 days (July 24 through Aug 23, 2018).

It is still prudent to be cautious with investing in these extensions, and still true that overall the return on investment seems better in .com. The difference is narrowing, however, and if the comparison is with other legacy extensions, or country code extensions, the case for new extensions could be made (although is still arguable).

Notes

The NameBio database (or at least the portion publicly reported) does not include sales with value less than $100, nor sales from a number of venues such as Afternic, Undeveloped or Efty (unless buyers or sellers report them individually), nor from most of the ngTLD registries, so it is difficult to estimate how complete a record this is of all ngTLD domain name sales. Sometimes sales are posted on NameBio after their recorded sales date and therefore never appear on the daily report although they do appear in the NameBio database.


Previous Reports


Here are links to the three previous reports in case you want to do monthly comparisons:

Next Report and Other News


We will issue our next report in late September, and it will cover ngTLD sales for the period from Aug 23 through Sept 22. This monthly update on publicly reported ngTLD sales is offered as a service to the domain community.  While we strive to be accurate, no implied guarantee or warranty is associated with this report, and readers should independently verify information before using it in any domain investment decisions. As always we welcome comments and corrections. We report regularly on domain name news, with a special emphasis on the new extensions, on our Twitter feed.  Why not join the more than 1400 domain investors, venture capitalists, tech experts, startup owners and other great people that already follow us @AGreatName?  If we can be of assistance in helping you find a domain name at a value price, or using a domain name phrase in a marketing campaign, don't hesitate to contact us through our website (or via direct message at Twitter).

Links:


Original post Aug 23, 2018.

Disclosure:  I am  not associated with NameBio, but would like to acknowledge their incredible database and their generosity to make it available to the domain community. My portfolio of domain names is mainly ngTLDs, as well as a number of .co, .com and .ca (and a few other country codes).

Fine Print

This post is offered for informational and educational purposes only, and should not be considered domain name investment advice. While an attempt has been made to be accurate, there is no implied or explicit warranty, and you are responsible for verifying any information of importance to you. You also accept full responsibility for any domain investing decisions you may make that use data from this post.

I try to be fair, balanced and objective in my analysis.  If you feel this post does not meet that standard, please express your concerns to me.  

In a very few cases there may be affiliate links on this blog. This means I receive a small amount if users visit or make purchases via the link. You do not pay any additional charge due to using an affiliate link, and in some cases your cost will be below the normal price. I receive no identifying information about who clicks, or does not click, any link. I never accept compensation to provide favourable review of any particular service or product.

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