Recently, Moses Kemibaro present the marketing plan for the .KE top-level country domain, managed by the Kenya Network Information Centre (KENIC). In his presentation, he asks an intriguing question: Are .KE domain names really expensive?
Now I wasn’t at the presentation to hear his thoughts, but from the slide show, I will assume that he feels that .KE domain names are not that expensive. I respectfully disagree.
.KE domain names are way overpriced
The real question that Moses should be asking is, “Are .KE domain names relatively expensive?” See, its not that .KE registrars are making 75% profit, like .com registrars, its that new web entrants, which they’re targeting with the me.ke marketing plan, are going to be price sensitive.
At $5 or less per year for the more widely known .com domain name, the $45 per year fee for a .KE domain is crazy expensive. Add to it that young Kenyans (the assumed me.ke target market) have less to spend on domain names, and I say that KENIC should be trying to price personal .KE domain names at $2 or $3 per year.
Give me.ke domain names away!
In fact, I say that KENIC should be giving away the first year of a me.ke domain name. Why? Because the owners of a me.ke domain will invest in it, to make it real and respectable – its thiername.ke after all – and when year 2 comes along, they’ll pay $5-10 to keep their new address alive.
A great example of this marketing plan as a successful business strategy is 1&1.com, the giant German web host. They give away the first year of a domain name and add on many important features for free, because they know that once a person (or business) invests in a domain name, they’ll want to keep it.
And I should know. I’ve owned wayan.com, wayan.org, wayan.net, and wayan.us for a decade now.
Wayan,
The pricing issue never seems to end. However, KeNIC must be self-sustaining and until such time we have the critical mass it will be hard to lower the prices massively as proposed. Whatever the case, going forward, we are looking at dropping these prices over time as the numbers pick-up.
Regards,
Moses
I can see your point, but somewhere y’all need to take the risk of loosing short-term cash flow for long term financial gain. The free-premium model works very well in ramping up adoption and I’d say that’s .KE’s biggest problem right now – lack of usage. Once people know of .KE and its seen as a premium, you can raise rates and enjoy the cash cow.
@Moses, shouldn’t the ICT board or the government chip in, until such a time we attain the critical mass and the financials make sense. The more the users the cheaper it will be to have the .ke name. Better still can’t the web industry in Kenya unite and contribute to make the maths work. if every firm took say 300,000 names at cost price, to do as they pleased with them, wont the numbers make sense?
@Wayan where can I get the marketing presentation by Moses?
You can find Moses’s KENIC presentation on .KE domain names by clicking on the image in the post or the link below:
Kenya Network Information Centre (KENIC) Marketing Plan for 2010/11
Sorry to admit, but your statement makes me believe that you have not really a deep insight in this industry.
1) Please send the url where one can get a .com “At $5 or less per year”.
2) And which registrar of .com makes 75 % profit?
3) It is ridiculous to compare the Kenyan market with Germany! DENIC have some 14 *millions* (!) domains registered, while KENIC have some 12,000. This is 1,000 times less!
Considering this, a .ke domain must be 1,000 times more expensive than a .de-domain to get the same turn-over.
I don’t know the actual wholesale price for co.ke, but let’s assume around KSh 2,000/= or US$25.00. So the yearly turn-over of KENIC shall be around US$300,000. Taking the, compared to Europe or the US, enormous costs for bandwidth and housing in consideration, this is really not a turn-over, which gives one much space for dumping the fees.
Don’t get me wrong: Of course I would welcome cheaper .ke domains, too, but it is economically hardly possible.
Disclaimer: I am not a KENIC employee or similar, just a .ke-domain owner.
Cheaper .ke and extra freebies is what will ensure Kenic break even.
It’s known in every marketing strategy, no matter what target group, one needs to be generous; to help others and make intro without charging. Hence, .me.ke should be made free for the 1st year, thereof a fee is evident.
It’s all about strategies (90%) remaining (10%) innovation. Get the word OUT! otherwise lest Globalization Eat Kenic up. It’s blatant excuses when one can’t deliver a fare priced product.
@ BOFH – There exits several, expensive and relatively fare Site Build It, Bluehost respectively.
To enable local content building spread, we as Kenyans need fare priced tools.
I concur with Wayans
Kenya domains are a bloody ripoff! Corruption & greed is everywhere it seems. Where can I get the cheapest price for a .co.ke and a .or.ke domain??
I deal exclusively with NameCheap.com for my domains. No hassles ever. And why do most of these .ke registrars NOT allow owners to manage their own domains with a user/password?? This is UNACCEPTABLE.
The people that run this country just don’t GET IT.
Corruption.
Getting an API running for kenic will cost some juice and further more for a .ke domain nothing big to manage there (just the name servers, registrant address and getting the authorization code: well you can ask your registrar for that any time)
Yes the Domains are expensive especially the .co.ke, .or.ke and .ne.ke. The demand may be there but once a client weighs the cost he will most probably run for the global TLDs which are much cheaper.
The cost of ksh. 2320 forces the registrar to charge very low avoiding hitting ksh.3000 considering some registrars will charge the same ksh. 2320.
Until Kenic pushes these rices down penetration will still lag.
Talking about .com costing $5 you need some research. Show me on the whole internet a registrar doing .com at even $7 and I will thank you a bazillion times.
(I have registered domains for 3 yrs)
Hi, I may appear redundant, but for emphasis, I also maintain that .ke (actually the second level of .ke) are very expensive.
My argument is that I don’t care whether Kenic makes profit or loss. If I need a website, and sometimes for a client, the difference between Ksh 900 for a .com and Ksh 3,000 for a .co.ke is too much.
If the .co.ke or the .or.ke were somewhere between Ksh 1800 and 2000 (tax included), I would give it a thought.
FYI
You can register new domains at godaddy for just over $7, rather do some research before exposing your stupidity.
Now if you actually understood the point of the post, it wasn’t about buying a .com domain – which are cheap as free these days – but the .KE domain name, which cannot be bought for $5 or at GoDaddy