The .vip registry, MMX (or Minds + Machines) sees a bright future for their .vip domain names in China with the registry predicting higher than industry averages for first year renewals.
Early indications for .vip renewals indicated they were higher than for other new gTLDs. The term “VIP” is one commonly used in China, and is associated with prestige. It’s commonly added in domains names to indicate something more prestigious. China accounts for around half of all registrations for the new gTLDs, but for .vip it accounts for 97.6%, or 503,000, of its 603,000 registrations, according to NameStat.org. It’s the seventh largest of all new gTLDs.
The country has a huge potential for domain name registration growth. It was a point emphasised at the Domain Pulse conference in Vienna last February by Ray Zheng of the Shanghai Racent Internet Group. Zheng noted how China was a market of huge untapped potential with only 40 million domain names registered in the country with a population of 1.355 billion.
And MMX has been working hard in China to realise .vip’s potential. In December 2016 it was announced that, along with a few other top level domains, .vip has been given official government approval by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. This means they can now apply for relevant local licenses to enable their domain names to be hosted within the country. Prior to this approval only .com and .net operated by Verisign had this official approval. But now .club, .xyz and .shop and .site, among a few others, also have gained this approval.
“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,” said Toby Hall, CEO of MMX.
MMX have also opened an office in China to assist with first the government approval and now for marketing and building relationships.
But it’s not just .vip that has a bright future in China. The majority of Chinese companies don’t yet have a domain name.
