.Asia Sunrise Completed with Over 30,000 Domain Applications; Notable Auction results Continue to Demonstrate Interest and Value; .Asia Landrush Set for February 20, 2008

February 8, 2008; 07:37 AM
Hong Kong, China, February 07, 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.

More than 130 economies and countries around the world participated in the .Asia Sunrise. 45 economies and countries in Asia participated as the local presence contact for .Asia. Australia and Hong Kong led the pack with more than 5,000 applications each, followed by Singapore and China with more than 2,000, and Korea and Japan both with over 1,500. In terms of the distribution based on the locality for which a prior right is registered (i.e. based on Trademark and Company registration office), the US and the European Community Trademark office combined for more than 30% of all applications, with Australia coming in at 3rd place, followed by JP, WO, GB, DE, BX, FR and CN to round out the top 10 out of 131 around the world. Applicants came from 103 economies and countries. More than 7,000 applications came from US entities, followed by Germany and the UK, both with over 2,000. France, Australia and Japan submitted over 1,000 applications each, while the Netherlands, Switzerland, Korea and India occupied the remainder of the top 10 positions.

“The distribution and response for the .Asia Sunrise is largely consistent with our expectation, and a reflection of the maturity of the intellectual property rights community in the respective localities. The US and Europe was clearly more responsive overall, with Japan, Australia, Hong Kong, Korea and Singapore leading the way in Asia. China and India also showed significant signs of demand and interest, which I believe will start to be realized through Landrush,” added Chung.

66 ICANN Accredited Registrars around the world participated in the .Asia Sunrise. MarkMonitor represented the most applications with more than 10% share, followed by CSC Corporate Domains and MelbourneIT both with over 2,000 applications. NetNames, DBMS Inc., and ComLaude had more than 1,000, while Ascio, Key-Systems, GoDaddy and GMO Internet rounds out the top 10 registrars according to volume of Sunrise applications.

About DotAsia Organisation

The DotAsia Organisation is the Sponsoring Organisation and Registry Operator for the .ASIA Sponsored Generic Top Level Domain. DotAsia is a not-for-profit, community-based organisation incorporated in Hong Kong. Asia has developed into a global force in the international commercial, political and cultural network. The .ASIA domain aspires to embrace this dynamism in the Asia Century to become a nucleus, intersection and breeding ground for Internet activity and development in the region.