.VIP was awarded “China’s Most Welcomed New gTLD 2016” at the Global Domain Summit in Hangzhou this weekend. Both the Summit and .VIP are new to China, with .VIP being born only 17 days before the major new domain investment conference was staged for the first time. The award, granted by the largest gathering of Chinese domain name investors and professionals in history, beat out more than 1,000 other new gTLDs currently delegated to the internet.
The award isn’t just lip service: .VIP has been welcomed with open arms by China’s domain name industry elite. The Summit staged a premium domain name auction which included 199 valuable domains on the opening day, with 134 .com domains, 27 .cn domains, 24 .cc domains, 3 .net domains, 1 .top domain, 1 .co domain and 9 .vip domains. All eight .vip domains sold, raising a total of CNY1,860,000 (approximately USD283,000).
The Global Domain Summit auction is the third auction that MMX has sold premium domains in since .VIP’s retail launch on May 17th UTC (May 18th China). The first auction, held on Alibaba’s Taobao platform on May 20th, raised CNY958,500 (approximately USD146,000) for six domains; the second auction, held on May 31st , raised CNY1,334,000 (approximately USD203,000) also for six domains.
At the time of writing more than 268,000 .vip domains have been sold at full retail price, brokered premium price or at auction.