Domain Names of the World

Notable Auction results Continue to Demonstrate Interest and Value
.Asia Landrush set for February 20, 2008

Hong Kong, Feb 6, 2008 – Application periods for .Asia Sunrise successfully completed according to schedule last week on January 31, 2008. At the time of closing, DotAsia received a total of 30,780 domain name applications. These include domain names received through Pre-Sunrise, Sunrise 1, Sunrise 2, Sunrise 3, as well as the Pioneer Domains Programs. .Asia Landrush (open public registration) is set to launch at 12:00 noon UTC, February 20, 2008.

“The results from the .Asia Sunrise are very encouraging. We are accomplishing what we had set out to do: to ensure the stable and orderly introduction of the .Asia extension into the social and technical fabric of the Internet by avoiding the chaos which had often characterized new domain
launches in the past. At over 90% success rate for Sunrise applications, compared to around 50%, and zero disputes received to date compared to thousands of challenges in previous domain registry launches, we believe .Asia has set a new benchmark for the future launches of top-level domain registries,” said Edmon Chung, CEO of DotAsia. “The volume of registration is also remarkable. Based on information we have, the number of Sunrise applications we received is more than double the level for all other gTLD Sunrises except for .INFO.”

.Asia Sunrise auction results continue to demonstrate strong interest for the .Asia domain. High winning bids have exceeded US$20,000, while the average winning bid for contested auctions have grown to US$2,000. According to statistics from data obtained by DNJournal, average domain sales in the secondary market is above US$8,500 overall, with a median of US$2,900,
whereas the median for new TLDs (i.e. .info / .biz / .mobi etc.) is at US$1,500, with an average of around US$4,000. The solid initial demand demonstrated by the early results, coupled with a robust secondary market represents growth and investment value for .Asia domains.

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