A Chinese Agri-tech company called XAG announced that it acquired the XA.com domain name and has rebranded its website. From what I can tell, the company had previously used the ccTLD domain name, XAG.cn. The news was announced this morning in a tweet:
We are excited to announce that XAG has claimed a new domain https://t.co/q7wDA379tz WORTH MILLIONS for its upcoming journey of sustainable agriculture. 😁https://t.co/q7wDA379tz is one of the only 676 top level two-letter #domains existed in the world.https://t.co/Fop9oiF7Vm pic.twitter.com/w6LdDetsqy
— XAG (@XAG_official) April 17, 2019
In the press release mentioned in the tweet, the company announced that it paid 12 million RMB to acquire the domain name. At today’s exchange rate, that would be approximately $1.79m USD. Here’s an excerpt from the company’s press release that mentions the purchase price and why the company acquired the domain name:
“The leading Agri-tech company in China, XAG, has recently adopted a two-letter top level domain XA.com at a whopping price of 12 million RMB. XA.com is one of the world’s 676 rare two-letter domains, most of which have been owned by corporate giants. The purchase of such a valuable domain indicates XAG’s confidence in its future development of agriculture technology.
As the new owner of XA.com, XAG was originally a commercial drone manufacturer founded in 2007 but has now successfully transformed into an intelligent agriculture solution provider with powerful R&D capabilities in aerial robotics, engineering design, RTK navigation, cloud computing, agriculture AI, etc.”
If Ron Jackson is able to confirm the purchase price and chart the sale on DNJournal, it should rank as the second largest sale of 2019 to date, trailing the $3 million sale of California.com. It is unclear when the acquisition took place due to Whois privacy (or Whois redaction).
Update: Ron Jackson’s article casts some uncertainty about the price that was paid.
Welcome to .com country and the two letter .com club!
Quite a steal.
Impressive. A quick look into the history..owned by someone in Sweden in 2012, bought by someone in China in 2014. Sold to this company somwhere between Jun-September 2018. Mostly likely July 2nd as that is the last update.
Why XA.com? A company called XAG using XA.com seems to be a bit brand-mismatching. In this case, I think XAG.cn might be better.
The company was founded as “X Aircraft”, so XAG was probably a rebrand or a mismatch. Now with XA they’re going back to their roots. Besides, they are an international company so .cn is just not good enough.
The company started as “X Aircraft”. XAG .cn seems like a brand mismatch. XA is going back to their roots.
Besides they are international. And .cn is not.
Maybe it’s XA Group?
Maybe it’s XA Group??
Their official brand name is XAG now. So ideally, either their brand name or their domain name needs to change, if they care about the issue of brand-domain match.
We just added a 2-letter .com on NameJet. JE·COM
Good luck!
.COMs gaining traction. So many new domain extensions confusing people especially when it comes to company email.. So established companies buying .COMs specifically to manage emails. http://www.BostonPharma.com, http://www.3Dimo.com
Please be respectful and desist from degrading TLDs you don’t like. If you really want to express your feeling, do it in a less subjective way.
It’s all in people’s minds when it comes to which TLD is confusing, and there is no absolute answer. From a different angle, I can even say: “The most common TLD is confusing people by making people think that all websites in the world use that TLD.”
How many new TLD’s do you have in your portfolio, Ethan, and what percentage of your total names are new TLD’s? Just in case you feel comfortable to share.
If not counting “meh” domains I naively registered when starting my domaining career, about 40% of my investments are new TLDs. My inventory has not contained more than 100 domain names.
Then you definitely wont want to read Domain King’s blog @ RicksBlog.com because it’s surely NOT a safe space for new gtlds.
I used to check it through Domaining.com. But like you said…
Legally, it does not belong to the company, it belongs to the Communist Party of China. Like any communist countries, (Russia,Cuba) individuals do not “own” anything, they are all own by the state.
This is a State sponsored company heavily subsidized …
If you really think that Russia and China are still communist countries they probably defrosted you last week.
China has the second most billionaires in the world after the US, Russia in on 6. I’ve been to both countries multiple times and it couldn’t be further away from communism as it was defined by Marx in the Communist Manifesto.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_property_law
You’re welcome
@Richard- you were there as a rich White “Wheilo” tourist guest.
Have you or your parents lived thru the Moa’s years?
Why are Chinese/Russian money coming to USA and those “billionaires” not investing in their own countries?
Why are the Rich Chinese buying properties (sight unseen) with CASH$$ on the west coast esp in Vancouver
Agree, I was there as a privileged tourist. But that doesn’t change the legal system in these countries. The fact that I was there as an outsider doesn’t change the fact that these countries morphed from communist states to a state of turbo capitalism in a very short period of time. Also, not sure what Mao has to do with it. He died over 40 years ago and I thought we were talking about the current state. It’s true that Chinese are buying property left and right and a lot of them pay CASH. But then again, if they wouldn’t be allowed to own anything in the first place how did they get that cash and how are they allowed to move it out of the country. No, China has left behind communism a long time ago. So did Russia.
Gambling, long time, hit my numbers!
There is NO legal system in those countries!!!
They have “if you don’t follow what the party wants you to do,you will be in the basement jail”
Wikipedia is just a mouthpiece propaganda for Russia and China
You dont know how they Move cash?…..ha…you are an amateur typical ignorant white yankee living in a cacoon.
Next time go live with one of those familes in a village,slur the noodles and ask them how they move cash.
Make sure you slurp loud noisily..it shows appreciation and how good the food is.
The world is pretty much grey, not black and white. Of course there is a legal system in both countries, please educate yourself. It might favor the have’s over the have not’s but then again, that is probably also true for the US. Trust me, Chinese and Russians are stone cold capitalists. In fact in recent years the Chinese are probably better at capitalism that the Americans – just by looking at their current trade agreements… Trump is right to renegotiate that shitty deal. I hope Europe will follow and also renegotiate their trade deal with China. They ripped us off, lol.
P.S. Not a yankee. I swear!
Hey bro, you seems to have biiiiiiig stereotype of China. Go to the country and see it by yourself. Please do not groundless accuse anybody if you really not into it…People in China don’t even have ‘cash’ in their pocket, instead they only use electric wallet even in countryside, actually it’s ridiculous you were talking about moving cash….And just please do some tiny research you will find out how much the money goes into domestic, outside are just the surplus…Just wakeup from your american dream…
Yup correct, they do not use cash, all electronic wallet. Easier for the Communist Party to keep track of them and for the social status scorecard.
Facial recognition!! they want to id every citizen in China, and by the way ,all your devices are being “watched” by the Great Internet Police of China
I was the one that told Uncle Trump that China cheats…steals IP and unfair business deals.
20more years and China will be weak because of aging population.That what happens to a homogeneous society
The company achieved a net profit of 50 million yuan in the first three quarters of last year and operates more than 20,000 plant protection drones worldwide. It is not excluded that the trademark and logo will be changed next. To match the newly acquired domain name.
I am the OWNER of xa.com.au
Do you think they may be interested in purchasing it?
Wayne
Why would a Chinese company want an Australian ccTLD domain name?
Update: Ron Jackson’s article casts some uncertainty about the price that was paid:
https://www.dnjournal.com/archive/domainsales/2019/20190501.htm