GMO Internet Rebrands As Z.com Buying The Domain For $6.8 Million

GMO Internet Group, Japan’s leading provider of Internet services, today announced plans to unify its global strategy under the brand name, Z.com.

GMO has acquired the domain name ‘www.z.com’ for a reported ¥800 million (~$6.8 million) from Nissan USA. Nissan has been selling the Nissan Z car from 1969 up to today.

“As GMO Internet Group expands its global presence we aim to build our core values and objectives into the Z.com brand. ”

“Since its founding in 1991, GMO Internet was built on a desire to contribute to society by helping to enrich the Internet, bringing both enjoyment and value to our customers, and creating and nurturing Internet innovation and culture. These are the values on which we have built industry-leading products in Japan, and these are the same values that we take with us as we grow and expand into new markets.”

“In Japan, GMO Internet Group is recognized as one of the country’s leading providers in domain registration, hosting, ecommerce, payment, online security and online FX trading. Now, as we bring our suite of market-leading products to the global market we needed a simple and clear brand that would speak to the global community and communicate value. The Group will consolidate global services under Z.com to create a new brand representative of the Group’s corporate philosophy and values.”

“Z.com is one of only three single-character domain names available in the .com namespace, and one of only six ASCII single-character names in legacy generic Top Level Domains. Z.com is one the simplest, most memorable domain names on the Internet and offers unparalleled marketing opportunity and branding potential. We expect Z.com to be a powerful tool as we forge new ground in the global market place.”

“As the last letter in the alphabet, Z represents “the ultimate”. A graph with an x-axis and a y-axis is just a flat 2D image, but adding a z -axis gives it a third dimension. We think Z makes the perfect symbol to represent our corporate philosophy and leading-edge products.”

“As the world’s most widely used and widely recognized TLD, .com was the natural choice for a global brand. Securing one of only three single-character names available in the space will allow us to build a brand that is instantly recognizable and identifiable around the world and that will come to represent outstanding services.”

“GMO Internet Group has already established local presences in 16 countries, predominantly in Asia and Europe. Going forward the Group will bring existing global service brands in domain, hosting, FX and other areas under the unified Z.com brand.”