Minds + Machines Hires ZDNS & Allegravita LLC For China Expansion

Minds + Machines Group Limited (LSE:MMX) announced its expansion into the Chinese market with the appointment  of  the highly respected registry service company, ZDNS, as its local infrastructure partner. The Company has also appointed Allegravita LLC, a leading strategic marketing company focused on introducing registry businesses into China, to advise the Company on its market entry strategy.

To date, Allegravita has advised 15 registries, which include market-leaders such as .CLUB Domains, Neustar, ICM, Radix and Rightside,  while ZDNS, China’s leading registry backend service provider, currently enables over 40 top-level domains, including .xyz, .top, .wang, .club and .??(.url in Chinese characters), comply with Chinese regulations on domain name administration. Combined, new gTLD clients of ZDNS and Allegravita have seen over 2.3 million domains sold into the market through Chinese registrars.

Antony Van Couvering, CEO of MMX, commented:

Dr. Mao Wei, the Director of ZDNS, said:

MMX is also pleased to report that it is currently on-boarding its first major Chinese registrars. The Company is additionally at an advanced stage of establishing its wholly foreign-owned enterprise (“WFOE”) in China, Beijing Ming Zhi Mo Si Technology Company Limited.

Management, which is scheduled to visit China in February to support the launch, anticipates the Group?s first domain sales in China will commence in late Q1 when the first tranche of seven MMX wholly-owned domains will be introduced into the Chinese market. These will be .beer, .fashion, .fit, .law, .wedding, .work and .yoga. It is anticipated that .VIP will then be launched during Q2 where a major focus will be on the Chinese market. (shopping – IDN) will be launched later in the year.

David Weill, non-executive director of MMX and special advisor to the Company on Asia, added:

According to official Chinese government data*, by December 2015, 31.02 million domain names were registered in China. Since MIIT released its new regulations on top level domains in May 2015, domain name registrations that can be attributed to new gTLDs currently seeking compliance with China’s regulations increased from 400,000 to 3,000,000** in a six-month period, approximately 26% of total new gTLD registrations globally. As such, MMX?s management considers the Chinese market to have rapidly established itself as an extremely important and active participant in the world market for domain names.