.mobi Registrations Doing Much Better Than Expected
Earlier this year, people were predicting that the dot mobi extension would be wiped out when it came to the Landrush Anniversary (26 September 2008). They were wrong.
As of this morning’s zone file (31 December 2008) , the .mobi count of 867629 is off only 9.54% since the Landrush Anniversary count of 959154. Purely on domain registration volume the dot mobi extension is doing much better than expected.
Traditionally the Landrush anniversary for any new Top Level Domain marks the start of the JunkDump phase. This is when the highly speculative domains registered during the landrush phase and failed to sell are dropped. Many of these domains are domains registered in the new TLD because they exist in .com or because they have a supposed rarity value. The classic example of how a TLD develops during the landrush phase is the graph of the dot asia growth for 2008 . It shows how the bulk of a TLD’s domain registrations occur in the first three months of a TLD’s opening for unrestricted registration.
The dot mobi extension was launched during the peak of the recent domain registration bubble. The .eu fiasco had just happened in April/May/June 2006 and dot mobi was another highly speculative venture but one with a far better management than that of .eu ccTLD. The two year initial registration period for .mobi landrush domains offset the JunkDump phase by a year.
Since 26 September 2008, 154006 dot mobi domains have dropped out of the zone file. But in that period 62481 new domains have appeared in the zone file. This in an indication that there is still a demand for .mobi domains. A number of larger drop catchers such as Snapnames.com and Pool.com have started providing .mobi dropcatching services.
The 2009 market for domain names is going to be tough and even .com will take a hit as PPC revenues fall. However with mobile internet becoming more popular, dot mobi could find itself pushed along with the trend. It will, like many other niche TLDs find itself under pressure and the negative growth will continue for a while yet.
Tags: Irishblogs,dot Mobi, .mobi, .asia, Domains, Internet Statistics, DNS, mobi Domain Statistics
Written by John McCormac on December 31st, 2008 with
2 comments.
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#1. January 4th, 2009, at 10:15 PM.
9.5% is not a good result. It is possibly the biggest decline a gtld has ever seen.
As a comparison .biz dropped 9% after the anniversary, .info the same 9% - that was from the very high to the very low. Both those extensions have been flops, especially .biz.
.mobi has already exceed those levels and there is still quite alot to be worked through the systems by the sounds of it. In terms of significance a 9% in registration is huge, even during the .com bust .com registration only fell 5%, but actual values in the aftermarket fell by about 90%. When a market implodes it is followed by a much smaller fall in registrations, they are rather “sticky”, some people hang on for years before being willing to let names expire.