CAMBRIDGE, Mass.–(

BUSINESS WIRE

)–

Sedo

,
the leading online domain marketplace and monetization provider, today
announced the results of its 2010/Q4 2010 Domain Market Study which
reveals domain industry trends and changes based on transactions in its
marketplace. As of the end of Q4 2010, Sedo’s global marketplace now
hosts over 18 million domain names and produced $101,438,953 in total
sales for 2010, putting Sedo over the $100 million dollar mark for the
very first time. Since 2009, the total annual sales increased to over
$2.5 million, marking the largest annual sales growth for Sedo to date.

The domain market, as represented by the Sedo marketplace, has seen
notable growth in the volume of domains changing hands this year in
comparison to 2009. As seen in previous year over year comparisons, the
first two quarters of 2010 produced more sales than the second half of
the year with Q4 showing slightly higher sales volume than Q3.

While the .co extension has yet to break into the top ten ccTLD list,
notable sales such as e.co, beauty.co and auction.co have helped
position this new extension to compete for a top spot in the upcoming
quarters as awareness of the .co extension continues to increase.

“The growth in Sedo’s marketplace has been consistently on the upswing
as more businesses are seeing the value in domain names,” says Jeremiah
Johnston, COO and general counsel of Sedo. “While average sales prices
are up as a reflection of large sales in 2010, the increase in average
median prices is the true indicator of market growth and stability.”

Highlights of Sedo’s 2010/Q4 2010 study include:

The most popular gTLD continues to be .com, accounting for 76% of all
Q4 gTLD sales and 75% of all 2010 gTLD sales. The .net comes in a
distant 2nd with 11% of the market share.

All gTLDs increased year over year in median sales prices.

Transaction volume showed a steady increase with 10,326 in sales
during the quarter, a slight 2% percent increase from Q3 2010. Q4 2010
is also up 2% compared to Q4 2009.

A steady increase in the average sale price across all major gTLDs in
2010 compared with 2009. Specifically, the .com extension witnessed a
74% increase in average sales price year over year.

Among country code TLDs (ccTLDs) the .de extension remains the most
commonly sold ccTLD domain extension, followed by the .eu, which
pushed ahead of the .co.uk extension in 2010 for the first time since
being introduced to the market in 2005.

Offer/Counter-offer transactions continued to be the most popular
sales type, accounting for 40 percent of transactions, while
fixed-price sales accounted for 25 percent, and auctions accounted for
20 percent.

Top US sales include Sex.com for $13,000,000, Poker.org for $1,000,000
and Ringtones.com for $750,000.

“In this quarter alone, Sedo has sold some of the most valuable, premium
domain names the domain market has ever seen, which coincidentally
represent four of the top ten Sedo sales of all time,” continued
Jeremiah Johnston. “Shorter domain names like Sex.com, which sold for a
whopping $13 million last quarter, are highly prized for their branding
and marketing potential, their traffic and the benefits they provide
their owners in search engine marketing and additional revenue streams.
We look forward to continuing to offer businesses of all sizes the most
distinctive and hard to come by domains available on the market today.”

Sedo’s complete Q4 2010 report can be found online at:

http://sedo.com/fileadmin/documents/pressdownload/2010Market_Study.pdf

About Sedo

Sedo, an acronym for “Search Engine for Domain Offers,” is the leading
domain marketplace and monetization provider. Headquartered in
Cambridge, Mass., Sedo has assembled the world’s largest database of
domain names for sale, with more than 18 million listings. The success
of Sedo’s model has attracted a global membership base of more than 1
million domain professionals. Sedo is owned by Sedo Holding AG (ISIN
DE0005490155 / German WKN: 549015), which is part of the German United
Internet AG (ISIN DE0005089031/ WKN 508903). Sedo offers regional
versions of its site for the UK (Sedo.co.uk), France (Sedo.fr), Germany
(Sedo.de), and Spain (Sedo.com). For additional information, please
visit them online at

www.Sedo.com

or on Facebook at

www.Facebook.com/Sedo

and on Twitter at

www.Twitter.com/Sedo

.