.Vip expects a 70%+ domain name renewal rate

Minds + Machines Group Limited (AIM: MMX), announced that first year renewal rates for its .vip domain in China will at about 70%.

MMX says that would be significantly ahead of those typically seen by new generic top-level domains in the region based on the manual renewals already processed on the first month of .vip registrations.

First year renewal rates are an important internal benchmark for the Company. To date, actual deletions for the first 31 days of registrations for .vip from China are currently less than 1%, with manually confirmed renewals for the same period already at over 60%, with the remainder being placed on auto-renew by registrars on behalf of their customers.

Whilst not all of those placed on auto-renew will be renewed, MMX expects the overall renewal rate for the first month of .vip registrations, which will be published in late July, to place .vip in-line with the best-in-class renewal rates of leading western facing top-level domains (i.e. c. 70% and above).

Just to make things a bit clearer. When MMX says that deletions are at less than 1% this means that people have manually deleted this amount of domains. Domains are deleted after 60+ days after expiration. .VIP launched on the 17th of May 2016 so no domains from that period have been deleted in the normal process.

Also when MMX talks about “auto-renew” it is not talking about what registrants do by giving their credit card details to the registrars and instructing them to renew their domains before expiry. MMX is talking about expired domains that are given a (30-45 day) grace period before they enter a pending-delete instead of entering the pending-delete status right after expiration. This is what most (if not all) registrars are doing.

So the .vip renewal rate is at 60%+ now and MMX hopes that some of the other 39%- expired domains will get renewed before entering a pending-delete status. Please note that this is the renewal rate percentage of the domains registered in the 1st month following the .vip general availability.

Toby Hall, CEO of MMX, commented,

“The .vip renewal rates from China, which have not been reliant on aggressive discounting tactics, are testament to the inherent value of the .vip extension and hard work of our retail partners.

“This bodes well for our Chinese premium revenues in H2 as we begin releasing our 2017 .vip premium inventory for the first time to the broader market in Q3, traditionally the main domain investment season in the region, on the back of .vip’s exceptionally strong renewal profile.”

MMX is currently progressing a further eight extensions through the MIIT (Chinese regulator) approval process for potential future release in China.