Hong Kong, The Sun, 11 October 2000 -- Although domain name registration is a vital service with guaranteed returns in e-Commerce, it will still reach a point of saturation as the Internet enters a certain phase of development. NSI, the world's largest domain name registry, has thus made plans to enter the Asian-Pacific non-English domain name registration market with a de facto technological standard in support of Asian languages. It will now process registrations for Chinese, Japanese and Korean domain names.

Currently in charge of TLDs like .com and .net, NSI has indicated that it will offer Chinese domain name registration service for domain names like [.com] through technological support from American-financed Singaporean firm i-DNS.net. NSI claims that the move is in keeping with the pace of progress of the Internet in the Asian-Pacific region.

Demand for non-English domain names at all-time high

Mr Ye Wenji, the Marketing and Media Chief of iamasia, an Internet statistics surveyor in Hong Kong, said that in the past domain names had remained in English due to technical limitations. However with the proliferation of the Internet in the Asian region, the localization of domain names had begun to become urgent.

With the new technology provided by i-DNS.net, Hong Kong companies like HKNet and 3gNIC can now offer registration service for non-English domain names. Mr Ye said NSI has an edge over its competitors in the non-English domain name market since it is after all the largest and most successful registry.

Good potential in China's Market

The market believes China will be NSI's next most important target in Asia. NSI announced earlier that business with China in the first season this year was a 300% increase compared to last year but has yet to release actual figure of the number of registrations. According to CNNIC's mid year report, until July this year there are a total of 27,289 websites in China, an increase of 275% compared to last year.

Those in the industry feel that the saturation of English domain names has given Chinese domain names much room to grow; and much opportunity for NSI to profit at the flat rate US$35 first-time registration fee and annual renewal fee.

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