Breaking: .CO Hits 1 Million Registrations

There was some confusion last month when a Colombia-based reporter wrote an article that stated the .CO Registry had hit 1 million registrations in less than a year. That news was quickly refuted by the Registry, although rumors that they were close persisted.  The Registry hadn’t provided an update since it hit 600,000 registrations.

I personally believed that they would hit 1 million registrations before this summer, and I even bet Rob Sequin this would happen, with proceeds of our bet going to charity. It looks like I was right.

This morning, the .CO Registry announced that it has officially reached 1 million registered domain names registered. This is very positive news for the Registry and its registrants, especially with aftermarket sales seeming to pick up of late (according to Sedo). It has been undeniably a great year for the .CO Registry.

My congratulations go out to the .CO Registry team and its marketing team at the Pappas Group.

Press Release:

.CO Internet S.A.S. (www.Opportunity.CO), the official registry operator for the .CO domain, announced today that it has reached the landmark one millionth .CO domain name registration. Less than one year from the global launch of .CO in July of 2010, individuals, organizations and businesses in more than 200 countries have registered .CO web addresses.

“Entrepreneurs and innovative businesses around the globe are adopting .CO web addresses at an unprecedented pace, way beyond my initial expectations,” said Juan Diego Calle, CEO of .CO Internet. “To hit this milestone in less than a year is a great testament to the hard work and dedication of our team – and especially to the foresight of all of those who believed in .CO from the very beginning. From our retail and business partners; to the trademark and domain communities; to all the people, businesses and brands who are building their futures on .CO – we owe you a million thanks!”

To celebrate the innovators, entrepreneurs and trailblazers who are turning their biggest hopes, dreams, and aspirations into realities on the .CO domain, .CO Internet has commissioned a series of short films called “Under the Bulb,” which will premier live at a private event to be held on June 9th during Internet Week in New York City. Under the Bulb tells the stories of the people behind the growth of .CO. Each inspiring two-minute film captures life from the time the big “light-bulb moment” first strikes – through the time their ideas are brought to life.

“From startup to Super Bowl in seven months flat, we are a company of entrepreneurs,” said Lori Anne Wardi, Director of Global Communications of the .CO Registry. “Under the Bulb is our way of honoring the fact that behind each of these one million domain registrations, are one million singular ideas with the potential to change the world.” You can get an early preview of Under the Bulb right now at www.UnderTheBulb.CO.

.CO is the fastest growing new global domain name in modern history. “Huge, global brands, like Twitter, Amazon and Overstock, who are early adopters in leveraging the .CO platform, are helping to bring massive mainstream awareness and adoption to .CO,” says Naval Ravikant, Founder of Angel List, the world’s leading website where angel investors scout for promising startup investments, located at www.Angel.CO.

The move by Overstock.com, in particular, to boldly rebrand the company internationally as O.CO, and to feature O.CO prominently in all of its key television ads, continues to generate incredible global interest and demand for .CO domain names. Overstock Company President, Jonathan Johnson, has advised that we should “look for another big O.CO announcement to be made on Monday, June 6th.”

With registrations spread across every continent, customer penetration is currently greatest in North America (which accounts for approximately 50% of .CO domain registrations), and throughout Europe, (which accounts for approximately 25% of registrations). With over 2 billion Internet users around the world, and an increasing demand for short, memorable, globally credible, domain names – the .CO Registry expects the rapid growth curve for .CO to continue over the next three to five years, with the greatest opportunities for expansion being found in the key developing regions of Asia and Latin America.

Interestingly, the one millionth domain name was registered at GoDaddy.com, which is the largest retailer of .CO domain names globally.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

27 COMMENTS

  1. Well, it is a nice accomplishment for the .CO registry, but in reality the number of total regs does nothing for the value of an extension.

    .INFO has 7.5M regs and you can buy keyword domains for a couple hundred bucks that would sell for a couple hundred thousand in .COM

    I believe they were sitting at 650,000 in January, so the registration has slowed down dramatically even with heavy promotion.

    With the anniversary approaching, and so many terrible noob regs facing $20 – $30 renewal fees the I would guess the raw number is going lower.

    Brad

  2. I think that come renewal time next month that number will once again go under 1 million. I am flooded with emails trying to sell me .co names because they can’t afford the fees and we’ll see if anyone buys them even on the drops. I will be selling my “Defensive registrations” as I see no reason to protect my .com with a .co. I hope someone makes a huge .co company. PARTNER!

  3. “Under the Bulb is our way of honoring the fact that behind each of these one million domain registrations, are one million singular ideas with the potential to change the world.”

    Nice PR, but that is REALLY stretching it.

    Many domains are owned for brand protection reasons, TM squatting, etc. I don’t see “one million singular ideas” there.

    Brad

  4. Congrats to .co registry team.
    Yes, it can be a problem if the registry doesn’t lower their renewals.As a investor ,there are a lot of drops in .com this days that i could flip faster then .co.I could get 4 .com’s for the price of .co.
    I will still keep couple hundred from the 1500 that i have.

  5. Congrats to the registry on the great milestone. I like this quote from today’s post at DomainIncite.com:

    “That’s pretty good going (better than I expected) when compared to other large-scale TLD launches, such as .mobi, which took almost five years to hit the same milestone.”

  6. Ok. Great milestone for .co team. Marketed the .co well. There laughing to the bank.

    Now let’s see how many of these things drop. Is it going be 1/3? Probably

    The true indication is renewal time.

    Let’s get back to successful domaining and not speculation or what seems cool.

  7. Who ever was the one millionth domain register,should get a prize from .co registry,some thing like 10year free registration on that particular domain.What do you think?or a least it would be nice to know wich domain it was.Maybe it was mine.Ha Ha…

  8. Guess what I’m having for lunch… my words 🙂

    “.co will NEVER reach one million registrations. ”

    You were right. Congrats. $200 sent to your Ronald McDonald charity.

  9. Yes. July will be a decisive month for the .CO extension. I am confident the value of good .CO names will experience a substantial increase. The recent high profile sales reported may be a sign of what’s coming.

  10. When I checked most good names they always have been under few the same emails.
    I almost vomit when I see emails like premium@cointernet.co, iskia@yahoo.com, coportfolio@gmail.com or names like Maria Aguilera (maybe she knows Vardi?.) and one more female- I do not remember her name now.
    .CO, and those few guys from Colombia love to block all domains sold in the past and very quality domains e.g spa. Just go to any top domain sales history and type them in whois. You will see mostly the same names.
    Colombia has been famous for many years for Cocaine and corruption. Please be aware of that.
    Maybe they hit 1million but in reality most people want to sell them. Maybe
    People sold few on Sedo but this is still far form 1% out of over 70,000 .co`s JUST at Sedo. Its like playing lottery selling them.
    Take a look at .co`s which were sold at e.g CoLandrush
    over 90% of domains sold there are in domaineres` hands or nothing really built on them.

    I have a big laugh when someone says .co took off as vodka, property, brandy, internet, gin, beauty, business, tequilas and others were sold.
    WAKE UP! all these domains were sold two one person, he dose not change anything as he is domainer like you.

    Yes I do have some .co`s. 80% of them I am not going to renew as price is ridiculous for what I get.
    Remember the biggest challenge is to drop domains – ask Morgan Linton.

  11. Ps I like honesty of Morgan Linton. He said at domainershepra.com interview that his .co does not get many visits.

  12. 1 million in over 200 countries so its like about 5000 for each country.
    Yes, I do know most .CO`s were registered in US.
    But UK is second on the list (I live there) and any average Joe heard of .CO.
    So what about other countries which are lower on the list.

    Lets look at .CO statistics as facts always speak for themselves.

    1 million registration

    US- 38% = 38000 registrations
    UK – 17%= 170000
    Colombia – 9% = 90000
    Australia – 4% =40000
    Canada – 4% = 40000
    Germany – 3% = 30000
    India – 2%= 20000
    France – 2%= 20000
    Poland – 2%= 20000
    New Zealand – 1.5% = 15000

    It gives 82% for 10 countries above.
    Left 18% ( 180000)

    ” in more than 200 countries have registered .CO web addresses.”

    180000 (18%) divided by 200 countries = 900 for each country 🙂

    .Co must be very famous there, maybe even those domains were registered by Colombians living there 🙂

  13. “Well, it is a nice accomplishment for the .CO registry, but in reality the number of total regs does nothing for the value of an extension.

    .INFO has 7.5M regs and you can buy keyword domains for a couple hundred bucks that would sell for a couple hundred thousand in .COM”

    This exactly. 1,000,000 means nothing if it is mostly to domainers. But I bet the .CO registry is laughing… laughing at domainers, laughing all the way to the bank! Congrats to them for their marketing efforts it sure is working!

  14. I don’t see the true potential of dot co. I managed to get several ad clicks on my dot co. However, the ad clicks will never reach close to 15% of registration cost. I purchased very few dot co. I’m glad I didn’t buy into the hype.

    The high cost had little to do with my decision to stay away from the dot co. I’m sure the extension has good future potential. I prefer dot com.

  15. @abc
    “Colombia has been famous for many years for Cocaine and corruption. Please be aware of that.”
    But your reasons to dont renew them are:
    “Yes I do have some .co`s. 80% of them I am not going to renew as price is ridiculous for what I get.”
    Very Incoherent !
    abc, are you aware of that?

  16. It’s time to upgrade to

    .Co if you have a .com

    Look at it this way.

    Upgrades are a commonality

    we see this in regular tv to HDTV

    in DVD to Blue-Ray

    operating systems, software

    so it should not come as a surprise that shorter is better and meaningful

    so an upgrade from .com to .Co is only natural

    and should not be a surprise to any of us

    to have to do this.

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