New gTLD .VIP last week became a new record-holder for the first stage of new domains registration. This was announced in the Domain Name Wire blog, they quoted official Twitter of nTLDStats. According to the resource, in the first hour, first 12 hours and first 24 hours of general availability 56886, 115334 and more than 115500 (the latest figure is not final) domain names were respectively registered in the new domain. All three indicators are considered the best for the current stage of the new domains program.
Domain Incite, in turn, reports about another serious achievement of .VIP. In the first five days of general availability its registry Minds+Machines gained 3.2 million dollars from the registration of domain names. Thus, the company has already paid off the costs of buying the domain on the private auction of bidders; Minds+Machines paid 3.1 million dollars for the domain.
It’s not hard to guess that the majority of the names in the new domain were registered in China. Chinese users account for at least 80% of all registrations. Kevin Murphy, au author of Domain Incite, ironically said that this was expected. English-speaking users will unlikely show much interest to a new domain zone, since they risk looking ridiculous and pretentious if they have a domain in .VIP. However, even Chinese registrants can’t develop even registered names into sites in .VIP. To do this Minds+Machines has to be officially licensed to do business in China and get full governmental approval.
