Demand for new gTLDs operated by Minds + Machines (MMX) has boomed over the last 12 months, particularly in China where registrations have grown 44% to 814,000.
The Chinese demand shows no sign of abating, particularly for MMX. MMX recently gained approval from the Chinese government for .vip domain names to be hosted within the country and in early April reported 200,000 .vip registrations, mostly from China, which included 61 premium domain names sold via a recently completed eName auction, valued at $1.3 million.
Chinese registrants account for 13.8 million (48.8%) domain names out of the 28.8 million registered around the world in the 1,281 new gTLDs delegated by ICANN as of late April. With another 6.4 million registrants using Whois Proxy to hide their registrant details, it’s quite likely Chinese registrants account for over half of all new gTLD registrations.
The boom times for MMX in China shows no signs of slowing. MMX has applied for licences to allow the domain names for another 8 of their new gTLDs to be hosted by Chinese hosting companies.
But it is not just in China where MMX is reporting strong demand. Across Europe and the US registrations in their new gTLDs grew 37% to 350,000 over the last 12 months and the registry operator is eyeing opportunities in India, South East Asia and South America. They also have the launch of .boston coming in September.
MMX is the seventh largest new gTLD registry by domains under management with 1.081 million registrations across the 26 new gTLDs they operate. Their .vip is the largest with 811,000 registrations followed by .work (74,000) and .london (59,000).
Going forward MMX has 7 contended applications still outstanding with at least some of these expected to go to auction.
