The 2018 Q3 Statistical Report on Global Domain Names pointed out that domain name registration number kept increasing rapidly in the US and CN, and the two countries totally held almost half of the market share (US: 33.4%, CN: 14.5%). There is no doubt that Chinese domain market becomes coveted by global domainers. But hindered by regional, cultural and preference differences, many are confused about how to understand Chinese domain market and expand the scope of domain investing.

Numeric Domains, due to their simplicity, liquidity and wide application, are favored by Chinese domainers and often appear on Chinese domain market. Here we’re going to reveal the Numeric Domain mystery for you.

• Environment of Numeric Domains in China

In the US, people only need to remember two long numbers, their own phone number and Social Security Number. While in China, people are surrounded by many kinds of numbers every day, such as phone number, ID number, social accounts, and even domain name. Because there are many Chinese companies of finance, education, games, e-commerce, etc. using numeric domains as their official website. For example, If you want to shop online, you can visit 3.cn (belongs to JD.com). If you want to play online games, you can visit 4399.com, a large online gaming site. Do you want to to order a train ticket? Then go to 12306.cn.

In global domain market, numeric domains are mostly bought or sold by the Chinese, including 5N.com and 6N.com. In a sense, the liquidity of numeric domains is based on Chinese domainers’ continued investment in them.

• Why are the Chinese So Crazy About Numeric Domains?

i. Chinese number words are brief and memorable

As Stanislas Dehaene explains well in his book The Number Sense,

“Chinese number words are remarkably brief. Most of them can be uttered in less than one quarter of a second (for instance, 4 is ‘si’ and 7 is ‘qi’). Their English equivalents ‘four,’ ‘seven’ are longer: pronouncing them takes about one-third of a second. The memory gap between English and Chinese apparently is entirely due to this difference in length. In languages as diverse as Welsh, Arabic, Chinese, English and Hebrew, there is a reproducible correlation between the time required to pronounce numbers in a given language and the memory span of its speakers. In this domain, the prize for efficacy goes to the Cantonese dialect of Chinese, whose brevity grants residents of Hong Kong a rocketing memory span of about 10 digits.”

Here is an real-life example. A newly minted Beijinger Mithila Phadke wrote that she was the only one that have problem in remembering QQ number, as she was the only foreign employee in her department.

“One task, though, seemed impossible: remembering my QQ number, a string of randomly assigned digits that served as the user identification for the QQ messaging service our office – and many others in China – used.”

ii. Chinese cultural belief extends to faith in numbers

The number 4 is the biggest taboo as it sounds like death in Mandarin, and the number 0 is unwelcome if it’s at the beginning of a number, because there it stands for nil and is considered unpopular and low value. So people avoid using 4 in every scene and 0 in some cases. And in domain industry, numeric domains can be separated in two types: without 0 or 4, with 0 or/and 4. See following different market prices of these two types.

NNN.com without 0 or 4: 1,500K CNY (225K USD)

NNN.com with 0 or/and 4: 1,000K CNY (150K USD)

NNNN.com without 0 or 4: 200K CNY (30K USD)

NNNN.com with 0 or/and 4: 100K CNY (15K USD)

NNNNN.com without 0 or 4: 5,000 CNY (750 USD)

NNNNN.com with 0 or/and 4: 2,000 CNY (300 USD)

It can be seen that, in general, numeric domains without 0 or 4 is more valuable than numeric domains with 0 or/and 4.

On the contrary, the number 8 is almost favored by everyone. Buddhism is popular in Guangdong, Hong Kong and other southern areas, and because the number 8 often appears in Buddhism, such as Eight Consciousnesses, Eight Auspicious Symbols, people from there especially worship and believe in the number 8. And as it sounds like fortune in Mandarin, 8 becomes the most auspicious number all over China.

The rapid development of internet also derived abundant meanings of the numbers. For example, in the 1990s, popular numbers were 7456 (sounds like I’m so angry), 7788 (sounds like kiss and hug) and 5201314 (sounds like I love you forever), and today, the number 233 become fashionable, which represents a laugh, derived from the NO.233 laughing emoji of forum MOP.com.

When it comes to domain names in Chinese market, those with unlucky numbers are usually cheaper, while those with auspicious meanings or buzzwords are relatively at high prices.

At present, though the market price of NNNN.com domain names in China is about 15K USD, the price of a meaningful high-quality NNNN.com is quite high. For example, 8023.com was sold at 260K CNY (39K USD). At first glance, it may be difficult to figure out the meaning of this domain, but when gesturing 8023 with your fingers one by one and you'll find out the truth that 8023 indicates the English word LOVE. Besides meaningful NNNN.com, domains with the number 365 are also hot, as 365 means 365 days of a year, it is easy to keep in mind. WEALTH365.com was sold for $60000 in October 2017, and it has been built up as a financial information platform.

iii. Online gambling sites acquire a lot numeric domains, which also brings great market value.

Because numeric domains are brief and memorable, have many meanings, plentiful and some are cheap that people can afford them in bulk, online gambling sites often use numeric domains that contain four numbers or less, but sometimes up to 5N or 6N if the numbers are good, such as those with many people’s favorite 8 or 6.

In China, all other forms of gambling are illegal, except for official lotteries as the China Sports Lottery and the China Welfare Lottery, and legal gambling in HK and MO. Under the circumstances, online gambling sites often built overseas. However, in most cases they will be banned eventually and need to be built in different domains. So, if you see an online gambling site uses 666009.com, then it probably also have alternate domains such as 666008.com, 666007.com, 666006.com and 666005.com at the same time.

Some premium gambling domains are sold at high prices in China, after all, they are under the profit chain of gambling industry which basically makes a lot of money without any shortage of funds. Online gambling sites have acquired premium domains such as 399.com, 948.com, 56655.com, and 49.com. The number 49 is well known in gambling, because there are 49 numbers in Mark Six, and that makes 49.com an extraordinarily valuable NN.com domain in China.