Horse.ae sells for $1.6 million

A serious horse enthusiast has purchased the UAE domain horse.ae for Dh6 million (US $1.6 million). The Indian based firm The Ozone Group ran a vigorous campaign to sell the domain. UAE financial experts are hoping that this move will prompt others to push the .ae top-level domain into the global market. There have already been several high-profile domain disputes for .ae country domains, including baskin-robbins.ae.

No .ae domain had previously come close to the mark of Dh6. The .ae is just over a year old, and entrepreneurs like Munir Badr, are expecting this to be the beginning of something big.

“It’s a huge sum. This sale can’t be even compared to the recent two-character ad.com sale, which fetched just Dh5.1m,” he said.

“This sale is a true record and stereotype breaker and will surely boost the .ae market and its publicity.”

“People just grabbed hundreds and hundreds of domains like shopping.ae, store.ae, hospital.ae. They’ve already gone.” Most were held for resale.

To date, .com domains still rake in the most cash, with the highest being fund.com which sold for $9.9 million. To add more hype to the UAE domain craze, they will soon be adding Arabic-language domain names to the already sizzling pot. This will coincide with the new open gTLD policy that ICANN is expected to implement next year.

Source: The National
Photo: Flickr