A useful website to learn more regarding the China domain market
Want to dig into China’s domain opportunities? Start here.
The China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) website provides useful data to help you decide how to invest for the China domain market.
Of particular interest to domain investors is the Internet Statistics section. Here, you can find English notes of surveys CNNIC has conducted on domains and internet usage since 1997. The earliest English note was released in 2012.
I’ll use the latest note (No. 47) released this year to show you some of the useful information you can get.
The Summary page at the beginning of the note is a good place to start. It highlights, for example, the following information as of December 2020.
- 989 million users accessed the internet, with a penetration rate of 70.4%.
- 782 million consumers bought goods online.
As you can see, China has great potential as a domain market. Next, study the “Domain Name” section since it gives you details regarding domains registered in China.
| Extension | Registrations | % |
|---|---|---|
| .cn | 18,970,054 | 45.2% |
| .com | 12,630,968 | 30.1% |
| .中国 | 1,703,082 | 4.1% |
| .net | 938,792 | 2.2% |
| .org | 145,656 | 0.3% |
| .info | 31,445 | 0.1% |
| .biz | 21,583 | 0.1% |
| FRESH gTLD | 7,446,046 | 17.7% |
| Others | 89,985 | 0.2% |
| Total | 41,977,611 | 100.0% |
As stated by the table, .cn and .com are the two major extensions to focus on. If you decide to invest in .cn domains, the next table is also notable.
| Breakdown | Registrations | % |
|---|---|---|
| .cn | 16,274,907 | 85.8% |
| .com.cn | 2,136,939 | 11.3% |
| .net.cn | 285,579 | 1.5% |
| .org.cn | 150,474 | 0.8% |
| .adm.cn | 85,281 | 0.4% |
| .gov.cn | 17,930 | 0.1% |
| .ac.cn | 12,341 | 0.1% |
| .edu.cn | 6,422 | 0.0% |
| Others | 181 | 0.0% |
| Total | 18,970,054 | 100.0% |
It indicates that .cn has a much wider audience than .com.cn. This was not the case in the early days when direct registration of .cn was not allowed. .Com.cn was the only choice for corporate China but now .cn has taken the lead.
So far, I have touched on only a modest part of the note. There is still a lot of information to digest.
If you are serious regarding the China domain market, I suggest downloading all the notes, inputting the data into Excel, and making charts. By doing so, you will be able to see changes in the market over the years.
