The 1 letter Z.com domain name has reportedly been sold for nearly $6.8 million, according to a press release that hit the wires today. The buyer is a company called the GMO Internet Group, and the domain name had previously been registered to Nissan North America, Inc.
According to the press release distributed by the GMO Internet Group:
“GMO Internet, Inc. one of Japan’s leading Internet services providers and operator of the country’s largest domain registrar, today announces the acquisition of single-character domain name, Z.com (z.com/en) for JPY800 million.”
At today’s exchange rate, JPY800 million is worth $6,776,448 USD. This would rank as one of the ten largest publicly reported domain name sales of all time. It would also rank as the largest public domain name sale in 2014, according to the DNJournal year to date sale report. The second highest sale of the year was MI.com, which sold for $3.6 million.
Interestingly, the two letter FB.com domain name was bought by Facebook in 2013 for $8.5 million. In my opinion, the sale price seems very good for the buyer, especially considering how rare single letter .com domain names are.
This news was shared on Twitter by internet entrepreneur Josh Metnick.
The press release is below:
GMO Internet, Inc. one of Japan’s leading Internet services providers and operator of the country’s largest domain registrar, today announces the acquisition of single-character domain name, Z.com (z.com/en) for JPY800 million.
As one of only three single-character domain names currently existing in the .com space, Z.com is highly memorable and offers unparalleled marketing opportunity. With over 100 million registrations, .com is one of the most instantly recognizable and easily identifiable domains in the world. Z.com was acquired to spearhead GMO Internet Group global growth strategy, and securing “Z” under the .com Top Level Domain, provides the Group with a powerful tool to build a strong global brand.
The availability of one and two character domain names in TLDs varies, but only six exist in legacy generic Top Level Domains (Q.com, X.com, and Z.com, I.net, Q.net, X.com). In the crowded .com namespace, short and memorable domain names command premium prices not least for the simplicity and clarity of branding they offer. In 2010, sex.com was sold for USD13 million (source: http://www.domaining.com/topsales/), and this is widely recognized to be the highest-value domain name sale in history. The acquisition of Z.com today, represents a transaction of comparable significance to this record-breaking sale.
About GMO Internet Group
GMO Internet Group is an Internet services industry leader, developing and operating Japan’s most widely used domain, hosting & cloud, ecommerce, security, and payment solutions. The Group also comprises the world’s largest online FX trading platform, as well as online advertising, Internet media, and mobile entertainment products. GMO Internet, Inc. (TSE: 9449) is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan.
This could be a bit off topic but I’ve always had extremely negative feeling about Nissan because of their bullying tactics against Mr. Nissan in the nissan.com case (documented on the current website). As a domainer I would never buy their cars.
For those unfamiliar with this, you can visit http://www.nissan.com to learn more.
The early bird catches the PR 😉
Great sale. Hopefully now Nissan can buy the dot com from the Israeli they harassed since 1999.
They are even more rare then most people think. 7 million dollars is a lot of money but it’s seems cheap for this domain. I am curious how Nissan came up with valuation.
I just read this on TheDomains.com
“Only six exist one letter .com are in existence; Z.com. Q.com, X.com, and Z.com, I.net, Q.net, X.com.”
I don’t see six on this list; there are only 3 .com domains (Q,X,Z) one .net (I) and two .org domains (X,Z)
Perhaps a typo?
I think he added .com as a typo when he meant 6 total.
It’s a real zinger of a sale. They totally zipped up a nice one there. Plenty of zap and zazzle.