This report is focused on 2017 Q1 and presents key statistics of the domains that are considered liquid in the domain name aftermarket, that is 586,848 .com domains.
There are separate sections for each liquid domain name category: LL.com, LLL.com, LLLL.com, LN.com / NL.com, NN.com, NNN.com, NNNN.com and NNNNN.com.
The report provides the percentage of domain name ownership of major regions (US, Europe, China, Rest Of the World), development percentage, turnover and public sales volume.
COUNTRY OWNERSHIP AND DEVELOPMENT INDEX
For the third consecutive quarter, China was the largest net gainer of liquid domains names by adding almost 7,000 domains, nearly 1.2% of the entire liquid market. In contrast, Europe and US stayed stable, with the rest of the world (RW) suffering the largest reduction of 10,000 domains, or 1.7% of the entire market.
China keeps leading the numeric domain categories (2N, 3N, 4N and 5N), while US leads only in the 2L and 3L space with over 50% of the domain registrations. Overall, this confirms the well observed trend of China slowly accumulating most liquid domains.
SALES DATA
For the first time, we are excited to release the total sales volume recorded by Escrow.com, the world leading domain escrow provider with over $3B in processed transactions. This data provides additional insight in the higher value categories like 2L, 3L and CC .com domains. 2N and 3N data was withheld for confidentiality reasons.
The Escrow.com data ($16M in reported transactions in Q1) should largely be viewed as a complement to the sales reported by ShortNames.com ($8M this quarter) and not as a wider substitute. This is because many disclosed transactions in the lower value categories (3L, 4L, 5N) take place through auction platforms or marketplaces that do not necessarily use Escrow.com.
The 4L sales reported by escrow.com ($4.69M in Q1) should be interpreted instead as a combination of unreported portfolio sales plus high level transactions of premium 4L domains. Overall the disclosed sales volume increased by a significant 47% in Q1. This can be explained by:
1) the sale of 01.com for $1,820,000;
2) a 13% increase (+$390,000) in the 4L .com sales volume; and
3) a notable 10 fold increase in the sales volume for CC .com domains, which we highlighted last quarter to be the most undervalued category among the liquid domains.
FORECAST
The trend inversion in the development index might suggests that the price of liquid domain might be starting to become attractive again for end users. It is interesting to note that we are not seeing large losses on the floor prices. As predicted in our prior reports, however, we are seeing a decrease in values for the more expensive “Chinese Premium” domains. Especially the 3L .com domains which lost almost 50% from their peak and are now trading at values closer to the “Western Premium” 3L domains.
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Glad to see such reports offered regularly. As any industry matures, the emphasis shifts from single transactions toward bird’s-eye-view market statistics.