Domain name sales in the first six months of 2024, up 29.6% year-over-year

We're halfway through 2024, so how do the first six months of domain name sales figures stack up?

According to domain stats platform NameBio, which lists just over 69,600 domain sales, the total reported sales amounted to about $85.5 million. Of course, many of these sales are not reported in NameBio, so this is by no means the entire domain market. Compared to the same period in 2023, sales are up 29.6%.

The first six months of 2023 saw declines in virtually all market segments. the outlook for the first half of 2024 is certainly brighter, with total dollar volume slightly above the 2022 peak and well above the first half of 2023.

1. most sales come from .com

Dollar volume for .com alone is up sharply over the same period last year, from $66 million in 2023 to $85.5 million in 2024, an increase of 29.5%. No more domains were actually sold, but the average price rose dramatically. .com extensions represent the majority of the aftermarket.

In the first six months of 2024, .com accounted for 73.7% of all sales (in dollar terms), down from 78.5% in the previous two surveys. The chart below shows sales in the first six months of each of the last six years (at least as reported by NameBio).

2..Strong AI growth

The second best performer in the first half of 2024 was .ai, which reported more than $5.54 million in sales in the six-month period, more than four times the sales in the same period in 2023. The trend over the six-year period is shown below.

3. .ORG

While .ai just overtook .org for second place, .org continued its strong momentum in the first half of 2024, with a 25.7% increase in transactions over the previous year to approximately $5.03 million.

Below shows the 6-year pattern (first half of each year) for .org. Keep in mind that each chart has a different axis scale.

4. .IO bounces back

In the previous analysis, .io had declined significantly, but rebounded in 2024, with .io being the fourth strongest expansion in the first six months of 2024. Sales of .io contributed nearly $1.78 million in the first six months of 2024, an increase of approximately 86% from its relatively weak performance in the same period in 2023.

The six-year pattern for io in the first half of each year is shown below.

5. .NET Takes Fifth Place

While the gap between .org and .net widens each year, .net extensions got off to a relatively strong start in 2024 with a 6.1% increase in dollar volume, which was enough to maintain fifth place. .net's dollar volume for the first six months of 2024 was $1.57 million.

6..XYZ

While not quite at 2022 levels, .xyz is up 79.2% compared to 2023, thanks to higher prices rather than increased sales.NameBio reported total sales of $1.25 million in the first half of 2024.

7..BET

Perhaps surprisingly. The eighth-highest performer by total dollar volume was .bet at just over $640,000, but this was largely due to a single February sale of $600,000 for bet.bet.

Note

Keep in mind that this is only a comparison of sales for the first six months of the year. Economic and world events can have a serious impact in a short period of time. A similar analysis is published at the end of each year on the NamePros blog comparing results for the entire year.

Source: namepros