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In
this first installment I will give you a closer look at
the sales surge we saw in 1Q-2014. In the next
one I will detail what happened in 2Q-2014 and in the
third one I will analyze the most recent quarter -
3Q-2014. As
always I will look at several metrics including the
total $ amount of sales reported to us (both as a group
covering all extensions and by category, breaking the
group down into .com only sales, ccTLD sales and non
.com gTLD sales). We will also look at median sales
prices in the same groupings. These
numbers are based on sales reported to us by the leading
sales venues and private buyers and sellers for our popular
weekly domain
sales report that comes out on Wednesday
evenings. While publicly reported sales represent only a
fraction of the overall market, the tens of millions
of dollars worth of sales we have access to give us a
large enough sample to get some valuable insight into market trends. Also
note that, in order to keep our weekly reports at a
manageable length, we do not track sales below four
figures (to be specific, we track .com sales of $2,000
and up and all other TLDs from $1,000 and up). Numbers
for total $ volume would be higher if we also tracked
the lowest end of the market and conversely median
prices would be lower. However, since starting our
tracking of the domain aftermarket in 2003 we have
always used the same parameters so our
comparisons continue to compare "apples to
apples."
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Sales
image from Bigstock |
Having
set the stage, let's now look at domain sales
results from 1Q-2014, a quarter that showed
the biggest year over gains we have seen since we
started tracking sales well over a decade ago. The
total $ volume of
sales reported to us across all extensions in 1Q-2014
was $32 million, a stunning 47% increase
over the $21.8 million reported in the
same quarter of 2013 (it was also 19%
higher than the previous quarter 4Q-2013, when $26.9
million in sales were recorded).
1Q-2014 also saw
the return of high end sales, further
evidence that the severe recession was receding
into history. The blockbusters closed in the
opening quarter included Whisky.com at $3.1
million, 37.com at $2.43 |
| million,
Youxi.com - also at $2.43 million, 100.com
at $950,000 and WAN.com at $800,000.
Another impressive thing about 1Q-2014 was that
the $ volume went up dramatically even though the
number of transactions reported went down by
10%! That means average selling prices were
higher and also indicates the recession era fire
sales were tapering off as fewer quality names
were offered. |
While
the numbers for the market as a whole were very
good, the numbers for .coms alone were even
better. The $25.7 million in .com sales
reported to us in 1Q-2014 was a whopping 60% jump
over the $16.1 million reported a year earlier
(1Q-2013). It was also a 21% rise from the $21.2
million reported in the previous quarter (4Q-2013). The
.coms were not the only ones kicking butt either. The
ccTLDs also had outstanding gains. The $4.6
million in reported 1Q-2014 country code sales was 31%
higher than in the same quarter a year earlier and 28%
better that the prior quarter (4Q-2013). The ccTLDs benefited
from a big surge in Chinese domain sales - in fact the
quarter's seven biggest sales were all Chinese .CN
domains, led by Game.cn at $512,307 and WAN.cn
at $247,830.
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only group that did not benefit from the market
boom was the non .com gTLDs (which include
.net, .org, .info, .biz, etc). Just $1.7
million in sales were reported in that
category, a 23% drop from the $2.2
million reported in 1Q-2013 and 19% less than
the $2.1 million reported in the previous
quarter (4Q-2013). We think that this setback may
have been due to the impending arrival to market
of the first new gTLDs. Since these new
extensions are all non .com gTLDs, they present a
flood of new competition for the existing
TLDs in this group. So, buyers may have decided to
sit back while they see how this is all going to
play out (in our next two newsletters covering 2Q
and 3Q of 2014 you will see how this picture
evolved as the year went along).
Now let's look at
median sales prices - the point at which
half of all sales were higher and |
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| half
were lower. This can be a more accurate gauge of
market trends because the median isn't skewed by a
few outlier blockbuster sales. With the opposing
force of so many sales above it and so many below,
it is a difficult needle to move so changes in
median prices tend to be quite small - typically
just a percentage point or two in either
direction. Still, median prices were up significantly
across the board year over year. |
Across
all TLDs the median price of sales reported to us was up
10.4% in 1Q-2014 compared to 1Q-2013, a very big
number for median price movement. The $2,970
median in 1Q-2014 was also 2.4% higher than the
previous quarter (4Q-2013) when the rebound from the
recession was already well underway. When
you look at .com only, the median price jumped 6.5%
year over year to $3,301. the ccTLDs
also saw healthy gains with the 1Q-2014 median of
$2,000 representing a 3.3% rise year over
year and 2.1% above the previous quarter. Even
the non .com gTLDs, which fared so poorly in
total $ volume results, enjoyed higher median prices. At
$1,999 their number was up an impressive
11% year over year though almost unchanged (up 0.2%)
from the previous quarter (4Q-2013). 1Q-2014
clearly set a high bar for the rest of the year.
In our next installment of this series we will dissect 2Q-2014
to see how the market followed such a bang up opening
quarter. |
