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The
domain aftermarket remains on course despite
severe disruptions in the general economy. |
Since I had not noticed any
significant decline in sales in my weekly reports on the
aftermarket I figured there must have been an outlier
or two that accounted for that big year over year
difference. On closer inspection I found that was indeed
the case. Q2-2007 was the quarter when Porn.com
sold for $9.5 million. In Q2-2008 all reported
sales were under $1 million so there was no
blockbuster deal to offset the landmark Porn.com sale a
year ago. |
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If you look
at the comparative sales without Porn.com, then Q2-2008
was slightly better than Q2-2007, $27.7 million vs.
$27.1 million. That is a much slower growth rate than
we have been seeing, but I said late last year that given
the rapid deterioration of the general economy, it would
be a major victory if domain sales could just hold
their own. They continue to do that and the past three
weeks have been especially solid as shown in our weekly
domain sales reports.
I also looked
at how 2Q-2008 compared to Q1-2008 (the first
quarter of each year is often the strongest of the year).
Again the raw total showed Q1 was much stronger at $38
million in reported sales. However, again another
major outlier was involved. $10 million of that Q1
total was for a single domain, Fund.com. Without
it, Q1-2008 was about the same as Q2-2008, $28 million
vs. $27.7 million. Q1 also benefitted from two other
sales over $1 million: DataRecovery.com ($1.6 million)
and Cruises.co.uk ($1.1 million).
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Now that we are
halfway through 2008, I also looked at how the
first six months of this year compared against the
first six months of last year. Again the overall
economy was dramatically better in the
first six months of 2007, yet in domain terms,
total sales for the first six months of 2008 easily
topped the first six months of 2007, growing 11.6%
with $65.7 million in sales reported in the
first half of this year vs. $56.5 million
in reported sales the first half of last year. |
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Those comparisons confirmed
what I believed I was seeing anecdotally, that the domain
aftermarket has been holding its own while the real estate
and credit markets are collapsing around us. I think we
are clearly blessed to be in an industry that continues to
perform well when so many others are struggling to
survive.
(Posted
July
16, 2008) |
