January 2018 – Boom and Bust in top new gTLDs
For some new gTLDs, 2017 has been a tough year in terms of deletions. When the figures for January 2018 are compared to the January 2017 figures for these gTLDs, the top new gTLDs lost millions on domain names. However, it was not all doom and gloom. The majority of the losses were heavily discounted registrations which had a very low probability of being renewed. While heavy discounting drives up the numbers of domain names in a zone, there is very little incentive to develop these domain names. Many are never developed. Some are used for landing pages, PPC and other activities. The .XYZ gTLD loss was the largest due to its 1 Cent promotion which saw millions of domain names added to the zone. The .TOP gTLD was trying to complete with the .XYZ gTLD.
| New gTLD | January 2017 | January 2018 | Difference | Percentage |
| XYZ | 6,043,387 | 1,944,155 | -4,099,232 | -67.8300 |
| TOP | 4,312,984 | 1,294,411 | -3,018,573 | -69.9880 |
| WIN | 1,118,376 | 730,030 | -388,346 | -34.7241 |
| WANG | 862,181 | 582,821 | -279,360 | -32.4015 |
| RED | 292,844 | 27,800 | -265,044 | -90.5069 |
| BID | 591,742 | 377,086 | -214,656 | -36.2753 |
| GDN | 284,231 | 79,512 | -204,719 | -72.0256 |
| SCIENCE | 228,534 | 50,761 | -177,773 | -77.7884 |
| LINK | 321,133 | 147,300 | -173,833 | -54.1312 |
| REN | 230,622 | 112,663 | -117,959 | -51.1482 |
The gTLDs that have increased since January 2017 are below. While in terms of domains under management, these gTLDs appear to be doing well. The reality is that some of them have grown their zones by heavy and discounting. As long as they can maintain these heavy discounting offers to keep the new registrations ahead of the deletions, these gTLDs will continue to grow. With some discounting offers in the legacy gTLDs, the renewal rate can be as low as 2.5%. However, others in this top 10 list have signs of development and usage that will balance out the discounting to some extent. Domain names with developed websites renew at a higher rate than domain names with no development.
| New gTLD | January 2017 | January 2018 | Difference | Percentage |
| LOAN | 851,803 | 2,100,650 | 1,248,847 | 146.6122 |
| SHOP | 109,139 | 492,052 | 382,913 | 350.8489 |
| MEN | 100,012 | 454,044 | 354,032 | 353.9895 |
| LTD | 43449 | 323249 | 279,800 | 643.9734 |
| VIP | 512,812 | 765,024 | 252,212 | 49.1822 |
| CLUB | 820,261 | 1,007,936 | 187,675 | 22.8799 |
| ONLINE | 542,790 | 690,626 | 147,836 | 27.2363 |
| STREAM | 39,138 | 174,012 | 134,874 | 344.6114 |
| XIN | 123,811 | 247,854 | 124,043 | 100.1874 |
| LIFE | 49,077 | 171,160 | 122,083 | 248.7581 |
While some of the new gTLDs are definitely struggling with only a few hundred new registrations each month, others are doing relatively well. But as a group, new gTLDs are currently larger than .NET TLD. Apart from kickstarting development and usage, the next few months are likely to see some of the top new gTLDs losing a lot of discounted 2017 registrations.