The .CH domain, released in 1987, is the national domain of Switzerland and it is just two years younger than the top legacy domain .COM. Over the years, .CH has positioned itself as a stable and “mature” domain on the market, gaining interest among registrants and investors worldwide. But there may be another reason why the .CH extension has been attracting a lot of attention among domainers outside Switzerland and other German-speaking countries.
Following the current domain market trends and the potential of mental connections, the .CH domain stands not just for the Swiss country code but, for many – particularly not associated with the domain industry, it also carries a connotation with China.
China has been most influential in forming important new trends in the domain industry. Chinese capital fuels the secondary market to a large extent, and it has also been the complementary driving force behind the growth of new domains program. The purchasing power of the Chinese has also contributed to the price increase of both the old generic extensions and new gTLDs.
Another reason why the .CH domain is interesting is the growing popularity of short domain names, mainly numeric domains as well as ones consisting of “exotic” letters, such as “q” or “x”. From that point of view, investing in a name with a short extension, like .CH, seems quite reasonable. And even though .CH stands for Confoederatio Helvetica – the Latin name of Switzerland, most domain registrants from outside the industry link the acronym to China.
An additional reason why .CH appears attractive as a domain intended for the Chinese market is the fact that there are still plenty of meaningful key words available for registration. The Swiss domain registry reports that there are approximately 2 million names registered within the .CH extension. With four official languages in Switzerland (French, German, Italian, and Romansh), the majority of names have been registered in German, which allows for a conclusion that numerous names in English are still attainable. And, while most valuable keywords for the European market may be reserved, there are a lot of attractive combinations still available for customers in China. Those would include numeric names, and names using less popular letters which may often be a Latin transcription of Chinese keywords.
It is also noteworthy that the .CH addresses on the secondary market sell at relatively high prices. The typical price range of .CH transactions fluctuates around four-figures. Moreover, the cost of registration and maintenance of Swiss domains is also relatively low in comparison to many other country code domains, especially from the perspective of the potential return on a good investment.
If you are interested in entering the Swiss and/or Chinese market online, the .CH domain may be the best option. Feel free to use our search tool to check if the names that you are interested in are available and register you selection online. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact our support team at support@web-solutions.eu.