Many people buy real estate they believe will be valuable someday, even if others do not see the value yet.
The same logic applies to the internet. People own virtual real estate, and the most valuable form of it is domain names.
A domain name is simply the name that points to a server’s IP address. For example: AhmadAlharthi.com. Instead of visiting an IP like 66.6.44.4, you use a name that is easy to remember.
Here are a few domains sold between April 21 and April 27 of that year:
Flashcards.com: about 937,600 SAR
Intensity.com: about 213,772 SAR
Tel.fr: about 114,687 SAR
Modernize.com: about 93,760 SAR
B2BCloud.com: about 75,008 SAR
That is only one week. The top sale during that period was around 48,755,200 SAR.
I wrote this because I was researching a domain and found it registered by an Arab investor. What surprised me even more was the global coverage about his portfolio, reportedly around 120,000 domains with an estimated value of 3 billion USD.
Here is a glimpse of some domains owned by the Kuwaiti businessman Thunayan Khalid Al‑Ghanem, listed without any particular order:
I.NET, S.TV, MEDIA.COM, MR.COM, MUSIC.TV, ARABS.COM, MULTIMEDIA.COM, IBIZA.COM, TRAVELTV.COM, ARCHIVE.COM, SAY.COM, CBR.COM, DJ.NET, DNA.NET, MONSTERS.COM, FED.COM, KHALID.COM, KIWI.COM, MISTER.COM, FALCONS.COM, RP.COM, JOGGING.COM, LIQUIDTV.COM, NETSOLUTIONS.COM, NLY.COM, OSK.COM, PTU.COM, REIN.COM, AI.COM, ARAB-SAT.COM, FM.COM, PARTY.COM, BIT.COM, CAT.NET, COOL.COM, EXTREME.NET, FEBRUARY.COM, HACKERZ.COM, HACKERZ.NET, WHYNOT.COM, HOOTER.COM, IMPACT.COM, IRC.COM, JX.COM, ITCLICK.COM, KHALED.COM, KUWAITYA.COM, LOOKERS.COM, SQUEEZE.COM, MIKI.COM, MILLI.COM, NRT.COM, PASSWORD.COM, YIOO.COM, VJI.COM, WAT.COM, WIFI.NET, DH.NET, BFA.COM, ENDS.COM, DOMAINDOMAIN.COM, MP3.TV, NEWYEAR.COM, OLYMPIAN.COM, RANG.ORG, UZH.COM … etc.
These are only what I could find with free tools. A full report would cost around 1,700 SAR.
In many cases, these domains redirect to his company FMA.COM, which focuses on internet development and aims to be the next big platform after Google, Facebook, and Twitter.
One last note: all domains owned by Thunayan’s company were not for sale.
💡Update: I heard from Mr. Hani Sindi that Thunayan has started selling some of his domains.