Latest news of the domain name industry

Recent Posts

Will anyone buy .luxury names?

Kevin Murphy, May 19, 2014, 13:31:17 (UTC), Domain Registries

The new gTLD .luxury went into general availability this afternoon, having reported a surprisingly promising sunrise period, but will it attract any interest from early-bird registrants?
The gTLD’s names are priced at roughly $700 retail, regardless of name, which is usually high enough to deter many professional domainers. This should mean volumes on day on will be low.
But the registry, Luxury Partners, reckons it had over 600 sunrise registrations — made mostly by recognized luxury brands — which it said made it the biggest new gTLD sunrise to date.
Does that show demand by luxury brands, as the registry posits, or merely targeted defensive registration strategies by companies that feel a particular affinity with the “luxury” tag?
The registry said in a press release:

While most registrants expressed interest in securing their brand name under .LUXURY, the namespace also holds great appeal to companies and investors wanting to secure premium generic terms to target specific market verticals within the luxury sector.

For a high-priced name, it’s also got a surprising amount of registrar support. I count something like 50 accredited registrars listed on its nic.luxury web site.
GA started at 1500 UTC today. If the registry approves our request for zone file access we’ll have its day one numbers tomorrow.


If you find this post or this blog useful or interestjng, please support Domain Incite, the independent source of news, analysis and opinion for the domain name industry and ICANN community.

Tagged: , ,

Comments (1)

  1. Bernd Lessing says:

    Out of the 570 .luxury domains registered so far, around 100 each are coming from Cartier and Richemont, going well beyond the usual brand/trademark protection scheme known from these brands.

Add Your Comment