2011 Q3 Sedo Domain Market Study

Domain Market Study
3rd Quarter 2011

At of the end of Q3 2011, Sedo’s Domain Marketplace went through
a number of improvements, including updates to our homepage, a revamp
Highlights include:
of the Parking Reports section of our customers’ accounts, and the launch
of the first Domain Name Price Index, IDNX. On August 1st, the biggest
change in Sedo’s 10-year history took place when we relaunched the mar- How .com sales fared against other TLDs in Q3,
as compared to previous quarters
ketplace.
The performance of Buy Now versus Offer-
Among all these changes, Q3 2011 saw a total of 9,778 sales globally,
Counteroffer domain name listings
amounting to more than $19,000,000 in sales volume, and a median price
of $1,974. Globally, Sedo’s biggest public sale was aktien.de for €500,000, Average and median sales prices for Q3

but 80% of sales revenue for the quarter consisted of confidential sales. The strength of ccTLDs in their local markets
The highest .com sales were grid.com for $275,000, and republic.com at
$200,000. Given the Q2 2011 sale of gambling.com for $2,500,000—
Sedo’s third-highest sale ever—sales volume remained relatively consistent
with the previous quarter. Take a closer look at the performance of the
domain market and Sedo’s Domain Marketplace by reviewing our Q3 2011
Domain Market Study.

© Sedo, 2011 :: www.sedo.com

Q3 2011 TLD Sales
1. Division of Generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) and
Country Code Domain (ccTLD) Sales for Q3 2011
2% 2% 1%
The most frequently sold domain extensions during Q3 remained .com 3%
and .de, but both saw slight changes in market share, with .com sales
moving to 49% (a 3% decrease since Q2), and .de showing a 3% increase
to 21%. The .net extension held steady as the second most frequently sold 4%
gTLD, at 6% market share, and .co.uk was the second highest ccTLD with
just 7% market share.
5%
Overall in Q3 2011, the top 10 sold TLDs remained consistent with
6%

© Sedo 2011
previous quarters. While newcomers like .co were less often traded, the
increase in .de sales still shows that ccTLDs hold pride of place for 49%
country- or language-specific use. 7%

21%

.com .org
.de .info
.net .co
.co.uk .nl
.eu .es

Sales Volume in $
2. Sales Growth
$40,000,000
When taking into account Sedo’s sale of gambling.com in Q2 2011,
$35,000,000
sales for Q3 2011 remained relatively stable. As with Q3 2010, the graph

sex.com
to the right shows a slight decrease in overall sales growth in sales volume $30,000,000
during Q3 2011—often the case due to summer vacations—but with
$25,000,000
record sales such as sex.com during Q4 2010 and gambling.com in Q2

$24,578,341
2011, the past four quarters have been strong for Sedo’s marketplace. $20,000,000

$36,995,239*

$21,273,575
$20,507,143

$19,303,083
$15,000,000

$5,000,000

© Sedo 2011
$0
Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3
2010 2010 2011 2011 2011

*sex.com sold in this quarter.


Q3 2011 Division of Sales Type

6%
6%
3. Division of Sales Type
The chart to the right shows a breakdown of the different sales channels 5%
for domain sales through Sedo’s Domain Marketplace during Q3 2011.
Although the Offer-Counteroffer channel remained the most popular, with
38%

© Sedo 2011
38% of all sales, this represented a decrease of 3% as compared to Q2 and
a total 5% decrease since Q1 2011. Marketplace auctions took third place
13%
with 15%. Most notably, this quarter’s Buy Now sales accounted for 32%
of all marketplace sales. With a higher sales velocity and a quick and easy
purchase process, Buy Now domains are becoming an attractive prospect
to domain sellers and buyers alike. 32%

Offer-Counteroffer Auctions

Buy Now Brokerage

Marketplace Auctions External Transfers


Domain Sales per Price Category

2% 1%

4. Domain Sales per Price Category
The sales price per category breakdown has remained relatively steady 4%
since the beginning of 2011, as demonstrated in the chart to the right. At
47%, nearly half of sales through Sedo’s Domain Marketplace during Q3 7%
2011 were $500 or less. In spite of a small decrease in the total number of
sales this quarter, this indicates that domains listed in this bracket are
always an attractive proposition to domain buyers. The majority of

© Sedo 2011
domains in this price range are listed at fixed, Buy Now prices. 47%
In total, domain sales of up to $2,500 accounted for 86% of Sedo’s
marketplace transactions in Q3, and 93% were below $5,000. Just 39%
7% of marketplace sales were in the bracket above $5,000, indicating
that the majority of domain marketplace sales still come in at 2- to
3-figure amounts. Domain purchases over $10,000, such as republic.com
($200,000) or aktien.de (€500,000), are usually for branding or large
business purposes.

up to $500 up to $10,000

up to $2,500 up to $50,000

up to $5,000 $50,000 and up


Average Sales Price per gTLD in $
5. Number and Price Comparison (gTLDs)
A surprise candidate among generic TLDs saw its highest average price Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3
2010 2010 2011 2011 2011
in more than six quarters: .info domains peaked in Q3 2011 at an average
price of $1,182. The .com extension retained the highest average price, .com 2,511 5,753 2,595 3,114 2,496
proving once again its staying power, although in line with the rest of
Sedo’s Domain Marketplace, it saw a decrease in average price to $2,496.
.net 1,675 1,856 1,584 1,611 1,430

.org 2,736 1,552 1,423 1,384 1,189

© Sedo 2011
.biz 1,054 582 1,745 1,275 1,122

.info 926 765 977 1,005 1,182

Average Sales Price per ccTLD in $
6. Number and Price Comparison (ccTLDs)
Much like Q2 2011, .fr and .es domains had the highest average prices, Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3
2010 2010 2011 2011 2011
coming in at $2,288 and $2,418 respectively. The .de extension showed
a strong increase, most likely due to the high-value sale of aktien.de this .de 1,449 1,519 1,263 1,430 1,715
quarter. Most other ccTLDs remained consistent, although both .at and
.co.uk gained in value.
.at 1,057 760 1,688 1,130 1,142

.fr 4,819 8,182 2,466 3,473 2,288

.es 1,093 1,502 2,031 3,540 2,418

© Sedo 2011
.co.uk 1,532 2,030 1,610 1,824 1,880


Median Domain Price per gTLD in $
7. Median Sales Prices
Traditionally the strongest median sales prices have remained those of the Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3
2010 2010 2011 2011 2011
three dominant gTLDs—.com, .net and .org—and Q3 2011 supported this
trend. The .com extension had the highest median price, with $650, while .com 522 650 595 700 650
.net trailed behind with $550. However, .info showed its strength once
.net 588 686 589 600 550
more, coming in with the third-highest median price, $519. This proves
that a newer gTLD can still break into the domain market, even with strong .org 589 697 537 550 500

© Sedo 2011
competition from .com and its cohort. As the third-highest median price,
.biz 500 317 405 429 448
.info has crept ahead of .org for the first time.
.info 431 420 442 496 519

Sedo‘s Top 10 Public Sales
8. Top 10 Public Sales
To the right is a list of the top public sales for Q3 2011. These sales are Domain Sale Price
those that can be publicly disclosed; 80% of revenue from Sedo’s Domain
aktien.de €500,000
Marketplace sales is private and so those sales are not listed.
grid.com $275,000
republic.com $200,000
3gstore.de* €135,000
onlinedegree.com $120,000
zy.com $105,999
siteweb.com $100,000

© Sedo 2011
silvercoins.com $100,000
nbb.com $95,000
selfemployed.com $58,000

*website purchase

10. Sales by Category Top 10 Categories
All domain name sales through Sedo’s marketplace are categorized, so
that each quarter we can review the most popular categories for sales.
The most popular in Q3 2011 was “Software”—perennially a well 1. Software
performing category for domain sales—followed by “Religion and 2. Religion and Spirituality
Spirituality”.
3. Employment
Examples of “Software” category sales: cloudbackup.co.uk
and freefileconverter.com 4. Consulting
Exampes of “Religion and Spirituality” category sales: 5. Humor
faith.tv and yomkippur.net
6. Regions, Country, Cities
Lower down the list, some more unusual categories grew in popularity
this quarter, such as “Humor” and “Books”.
7. Domain Industry
8. News and Media
9. Insurance

© Sedo 2011
10. Books


11. Conclusion IDNX: The Domain Name Price Index

By comparison with Q2 2011, Sedo’s Domain Marketplace has held
relatively steady. Although traditionally, Q3 sales volume is lower than
that of the other quarters of the year—as was the case during 2010—Q4
always sees an increase as the year comes to a close. The fact that domain

© Sedo 2011
purchases are closely tied with the economy in general is something that
is clearly shown in both the IDNX Domain Index and Sedo’s Market Study
figures, both of which correlate to wider economic indicators. We look
forward to a successful fourth quarter, and to seeing how both the
marketplace and IDNX develop as we move into 2012.


2011 Q3 Sedo Domain Market Study

Recommandé

Recommandé

Contenu connexe

Dernier

Dernier (20)

En vedette

En vedette (20)

2011 Q3 Sedo Domain Market Study