Market - Sedo Sees Growing Demand for Premium Domains

Sedo, the leading online domain marketplace and monetization provider, today announced the results of its 2009 Market Study, which includes never before released fourth quarter trends The company saw strong growth in full-year sales in domains bought and sold on their global marketplace in 2009, versus 2008 Sedo represented 64 percent of the top 100 public sales in the domain industry, with the next closest competitor coming in at eight percent.

Sedo, the leading online domain marketplace and monetization provider, today announced the results of its 2009 Market Study, which includes never before released fourth quarter trends. The company saw strong growth in full-year sales in domains bought and sold on their global marketplace in 2009, versus 2008. Sedo represented 64 percent of the top 100 public sales in the domain industry, with the next closest compe

The study further revealed that the .com extension continues to be the most popular generic top level domain (gTLD), accounting for 44 percent of all domain sales on the Sedo marketplace in 2009. In looking at its place among other gTLDs, the .com remained the most wanted. The extension accounted for 72 percent of all Q4 2009 gTLD sales and 74 percent of 2009 gTLD sales. In contrast, the second most popular gTLD, the .net extension generated 11 percent of 2009 gTLD sales, and only six percent of all domains sold on the Sedo marketplace last year.

?Sedo?s continued impressive growth in 2009 demonstrates the tremendous stability of the domain market, as evidenced by its ability to weather the economic downturn,? said Jeremiah Johnston, Chief Operating Officer of Sedo. ?We expect to see ongoing demand for premium virtual real estate in 2010, with geo, descriptive, .org and .com domains leading the charge, as domain investors and marketers representing organizations of all sizes continue to leverage domains to meet their business goals.?

In terms of the best-performing extensions for average sales price, Sedo?s study saw the sharpest rise in .biz domains. This growth can be attributed in part to the growth in sales of one character .biz domains, which first became available through the .biz registrar in September 2009.

There was also a significant four percent growth in the number of fixed price domains changing hands in 2009, as compared with 2008. This figure will likely grow this year, as domain owners apply fixed prices to appeal to more buyers. Meanwhile, the top selling domain categories of 2009 included software, employment, services, regions, country and cities, tobacco, insurance, three-character domains, hardware and casinos. Overall, Sedo?s marketplace scored some of the biggest domain sales of the past decade, such as vodka.com for $3 million.

Sedo?s complete report can be found online at:
http://sedo.com/fileadmin/documents/pressdownload/2009_Market_Study.pdf

About Sedo

Sedo, an acronym for "Search Engine for Domain Offers," is the leading domain marketplace and monetization provider. Headquartered in Cambridge, Mass., Sedo has assembled the world's largest database of domain names for sale, with more than 15 million listings. The success of Sedo's model has attracted a global membership base of more than 900,000 domain professionals. Sedo is owned by AdLINK Group (ISIN DE0005490155 / German WKN: 549015), which is part of the German United Internet AG (ISIN DE0005089031/ WKN 508903). Sedo offers regional versions of its site for the UK (Sedo.co.uk), France (Sedo.fr), Germany (Sedo.de), and Spain (Sedo.com). For additional information, please visit them online at www.Sedo.com or on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/Sedo and on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/Sedo.