• PAGE ONE
• INDEX
• HOME

123DomainRegistry plans Rs 10-crore investment

Ambar Singh Roy

CALCUTTA, Oct. 29

123DOMAINREGISTRY.com, India's first ICANN (Internet Corporation of Assigned Names & Numbers) accredited online domain name registrar, expects to garner a sizable chunk of the overall domain name registration business in the country by March 2001.

According to Mr Ratan Agarwala, Chairman, the projected revenue from online domain name registrations, Web hosting, Web development and e-commerce services in the current fiscal is Rs 5 crore. The idea is to register around 40,000 domain names by March 2 001 he said.

Mr Agarwala told Business Line that plans to invest Rs 10 crore were being firmed up with a view to gearing up for increasing business volumes. The money would be raised from venture capitalists or through an initial public offering (IPO). In the long-te rm, registration services would also be offered in the global market. The scope therein was immense given the fact that the GTLDs (Global Top Level Domains) sector was set to expand next year with domain names such as .shop, .web and .biz already on the anvil.

Having begun operations two months ago, the company has registered over 6,000 domain names in English. Plans are being firmed up to register domain names in other ICANN-approved languages such as German, Chinese and Japanese.

Mr Agarwala said 123DomainRegistry.com has obtained accreditation from ICANN on payment of a yearly fee of Rs 2.5 lakh in foreign exchange. As on date, there are just two domain name registrars in India, besides the hundreds of re-sellers. So far, Indian entities were required to register domain names through resellers of American registrars. The process, besides being expensive, was time consuming.

The company offers real-time domain name registrations online for a fee of Rs 425. Legal ownership of the names registered are guaranteed even as the customer is offered payment options. Allied services such as free hosting of sites of start-ups -- for a limited period though -- are on offer. However, plans are being firmed up to host sites on payment basis.