Monthly Archives: May 2016

Downward Trend in Dropping LLL.INs

We are in either golden period of LLL.IN buyout or a drought based on which side of the equation you stand. If you like to register dropping LLL.INs, the phase is akin to a bad monsoon. However, if you have invested in LLL.INs, the period is a harbinger of things to come.

As usual, my first paragraph is backed by solid data as evidence. So here is the graph from data collected as far back as mid-2008.

dropping LLL.IN
On the x-axis, is the year and month. On the y-axis, you can see the count of dropping LLL.INs in any given month. Let me give you an insight on how I arrived at the number of dropping LLL.in in a month. Since I do a scan every month, the number of dropping LLL.INs  for a month are ALL domains that are in PENDING DELETE or PENDING DELETE RESTORABLE state and scheduled to drop in that month. There is a chance that domains that can be “Restorable” could have been restored and would affect the accuracy of the numbers. But, this case is so uncommon that, you can ignore it as noise and does not impact the analysis of the graph I am about to provide.

So what does this mean for LLL.INs in general, if you have followed my previous post on LLL.IN buyout, the conclusion you can derive from the above is that LLL.IN buyout is here to stay and as LLL.IN domains are spread across various domainers/investors, there will be fewer and fewer drops of LLL.INs. We would soon reach a point like what has happened to LLL.COMs and LLL.IN drops would be fewer and far between. Finally, I sound like a broken record, but the time to buy LLL.IN is now!!!

A Short History of LLL.IN Buyouts

They say third time is a charm, well certainly in the case of the buyout of LLL.IN domains. Without wasting time, let me put up a graph to explain what I’m talking about. So here is the chart.

LLL.IN domainsOn the x-axis, you have dates (not evenly spaced duration). On the y-axis, you have the number of LLL.in domains available to register. Since I started tracking names in 2008, I don’t have the exact month when the first buyout took place. But, based on talking with folks who kept a tab on this, this happened sometime around Oct of 2007. The reason for the first buyout was the huge drop in registration fees offered by the registry. I think it was under $2 for the first year. The second occurred around mid-2011. One thing that I would imagine that caused the buyout to take place was a drop in renewal fees from ~$15.00 per year to ~$10.00. The current & the third buyout took place in Feb of 2015. Since then the buyout is holding firm. What this means is that surely & slowly the prices of LLL.in among resellers continue to rise. Just around 2014, one could get a decent LLL.in for ~$30-$50. These days it costs about $250+ even for a bad one. So the prices are on the rise, and whenever there are LLL.in drops, they are registered (aka caught) in a fraction of a second. To all the folks who have endured the up & down journey of LLL.in buyouts, sit tight and enjoy the smooth ride towards riches (as evident from the graph above).

The reason I put this post is that there are tons of new domainers out there who are looking or currently investing in .in domains, and looking back at history gives a perspective of where we stand and where can be headed. So, if you are seeking to invest in LLL.ins, the right time is now. Don’t miss this boat, there may not be another better chance.

A Short Note on LLLL.ins

As you are aware that there is a buyout of LLL.in, NNN.in and NNNN.in domains. The buyout of NNNN.in domains was largely driven by registrants from China. There is no LLLL.in buyout, YET, largely because there are just too many domains to be registered. In total there are 456,976 LLLL.in domains. That is a lot of domains and historically the LLLL.com buyout occurred sometime in 2007. So, given that .COM is a global domain and the first extension to be released, we should not be surprised that there haven’t been a LLLL.in buyout. Here are the trends of LLLL.in registered domains over the past few months.

Scan DateCount
2-Nov-1545,381
26-Nov-1544,756
19-Dec-1548,428
28-Dec-1548,037
22-Jan-1652,409
27-Jan-1652,208
19-Feb-1685,520
19-Mar-16211,060
16-Apr-16211,860
16-May-16211,862

As you see there is slow progress at the start and the number of registered domains pick up between Feb 19th and March 19th. Remarkable to say the least. Post that period of frantic registration, the number of registered domains is pretty much steady. Keep in mind that the number of registered domains has not gone down, which means that although there are tons of LLLL.in being dropped, they are either caught or new ones are being registered. Let me post another piece of statistics that will give you a larger picture of what is happening. See the pie-chart below which shows the countries where the registrant is residing:

Breakdown of registrant's country for LLLL.in domainsAs you see from the pie-chart above, over 70% of the registrations are from China. This was just before the price of CHIPS started falling, hence just after the fall of CHIPS, the number of LLLL.in registrations is stagnant. If the situation does not get better expect a lot of drops early next year, but lets hope for the best.

Now, lets look at the best part of combinations in LLLL.in domains that are not dictionary words or names — CVCV domains. CVCV domains are sought after or priced highly by domainers because they are pronounceable and/or brandable. A further examinations show that a large number of them are also registered by domainers from China, but domainers from India are not far behind.

Breakdown of registrant's country for CVCV.in domains

The stats above may not change drastically, so will not post the breakdown regularly, but if there are significant changes over the few months that warrant an examination, I’ll post them in another blog post. If you are however interested in seeing the available LLLL.in names , see the post here: http://www.domainmarket.in/blog/2016/05/19/available-llll-in-names-as-of-2016-05-16/

 

Startups in India That Have Adopted .in Extensions

In the 90s as India opened up its economy, the common bragging line among middle class families was — “My son/daughter got a job !!! ” . Today, that line has been replaced with “My son/daughter got funding for his/her startup !!!”. As India grows, the number of startups springing up in India is also growing. There is a blog maintained by Doron Vermaat — http://dngeek.com/ where Doron, religiously, almost every week blogs about the different startups that receive funding. You can visit his blog for more information. I was curious to see how many companies that receive funding use the .in extension over the weeks. Below are some of the charts based on the information I was able to gather from Doron’s blog. Here are the summary charts:

The first chart shows the total number of newly funded startups and the count of startups using .in domain extension on a weekly basis.

.in domain extension
The second chart shows the percentage of newly funded startups that use .in domain extension. I could have used the ONE chart for showing everything, but it was getting crowded.

.in domain extension

Here are my interpretation of the data:
1. Around October of last year, the number NEW startups that use the .in extension has been pretty some consistent.
2. On an average around 5% of the newly funded startups reported every week across the world use the .in extension. This is HUGE. What this really means is even if 10% of the newly funded startups are based in India, 50% of them are using .in extension. I have been visiting India regularly and most recently early this year and I have noticed the growing number of ads adopting the .in extension.

Disclaimer:
1. I cannot guarantee the 100% accuracy of the stats. There are number of things that can decrease the accuracy.
2. Some of the companies might receive multiple round of fundings, in which case they can appear multiple times and potentially be double counted. Although, I have made sure to double check, some duplicated could have crept in.