1N .cn domain names are very valuable because there are only ten available. Because these domain names cost 7 or 8 figures CNY to purchase, buyers tend to be end user companies.
Being curious about what the buyers have done to the domain names, I checked the domain names from 0.cn to 9.cn, and here is the result.
0.cn
Parked
1.cn
An economic news site run by 福建省经济信息中心 (Fu Jian Sheng Jing Ji Xin Xi Zhong Xin), which is a government agency promoting economic development of the Fujian province.
2.cn
Parked
3.cn
Redirects to JD.com, the giant ecommerce site.
4.cn
A domain name marketplace named 金名网 (Jin Ming Wang = golden name net). Interestingly, the domain name and the service brand do not match.
5.cn
Offers a new type of media by combining magazines with books. 5 rhymes with 我 in this new media sub-brand called 我为你传媒 (Wo Wei Ni Chuan Mei = I am your media).
This sub-brand is part of the overall magazine brand called 微杂志 (Wei Za Zhi = micro magazine). 5.cn has been well thought out because it also rhymes with 微 in the magazine brand.
6.cn
A video and game site. 6 sounds the same as its equivalent Chinese character 六, which is the first character in the brand 六间房 (Liu Jian Fang = 6 rooms).
The domain name matches the brand name. 6.cn must be very popular because when I visited the site, it had 1.5m users online.
7.cn
Was sold for 15m CNY recently and the buyer is the founder of i4.cn which develops apps for iPhone. The naming of i4 is very creative because i4 rhymes with the first two characters 爱思(Ai Si = love to think) of its brand.
7 is an excellent number because it rhymes with many big money words, such as 钱 (money), 财 (wealth), 机 (opportunity), 券 (ticket), 车 (car), 趣 (fun), 吃 (eat), 情 (passion), 亲 (kiss), and 去 (go). The company has not announced any plan on its use and the domain name does not resolve.
8.cn
Parked
9.cn
Does not resolve.
So, we can see that five of the ten domain names have been developed into operating websites, and one redirects to the corporate site of JD. About 40% of these top names are not yet utilized.
From here, we can speculate that many longer .cn domain names are still waiting to be developed. In other words, the Internet in general and domain name industry in particular are still in the growth phase in China.
This first appeared on Coreile.com