As I am writing this it is the last day of 2008, making it the perfect time to break down the final statistics on the year's domain sales before we reset the clock and head into 2009. In our last newsletter I reviewed 3Q-2008 domain sales results noting that at that point in time, total sales volume for the first three quarters of the year were running slightly ahead of the same period in 2007.

However the third quarter alone didn't look as good, dropping 22% from the same quarter a year ago. It was late in the 3rd quarter this year that the depth of the current financial crisis in the general economy was revealed in a shocking announcement from U.S. President George Bush who declared a massive bailout would be needed to try to right the ship. That blow sent the markets and consumer confidence reeling and solutions to the problem remain elusive today.


U.S. President George Bush

The bad news from the third quarter now turns into worse news for the 4th quarter. Total reported aftermarket domain sales in 4Q-2008 were $21,546,705, a whopping 37% drop from the $34,089,484 recorded in the final quarter of 2007. It is also a 12% drop from the previous quarter this year when $24,554,704 worth of domain sales were reported.

The precipitous drop in the fourth quarter took the entire year of 2008 down with it. After running about $700,000 ahead of last year after three quarters, the meager 4th quarter results left the final 2008 total for reported sales at $108 million, a 10% drop from the $120 million reported in 2007.

This is the first time since we started tracking aftermarket sales in 2003 that we have seen the aftermarket decline year over year, based on our sales sample (as we have stressed in the past, our numbers only reflect publicly reported sales. The majority of sales are subject to non disclosure agreements or kept private as the buyer or seller desires. The kind of large data sample that we collect does however provide a good measuring stick for how the market as a whole is performing).