.AR domain names will soon be available to the world

.AR Domain Names

Over the last decade, domain name extensions like .CO, .IO, and .AI have become a go-to for companies big and small, around the world. Now there’s a new kid on the block and I think we’ll be looking back ten years from now remembering its humble beginnings.

I’m talking about .AR which will become available to the general public starting March 10th. I first read about this on DN.biz, here’s the scoop:

.AR is the country code for Argentina and recently they started a process to allow second level registrations. Meaning you can get GreatName.ar, instead of previously being limited to greatname.com.ar

I Spoke with Simon Penchansky, COO at Toweb, one of our sponsors, about .ar.  Simon is based in South America. We use Toweb to manage registrations in global cctlds, especially those with complex registration requirements.

Simon shared the General Availability opens March 10th 2020, midnight local time which is GMT -3. That means it is March 9th, late night, for many North American investors, and various other times around the world.   .AR has already had a sunrise period for trademark owners and a land-rush period to grab highly desired names. The process for the land-rush was a lottery system with one winner drawn at random among applicants. You had to pay $20 for each prereservation, and submit notarized and mailed documents; a barrier and hassle for many.(Source – DN.biz)

So why get excited about .AR? Well, the size of the Augmented Reality market, which is called AR 99% of the time is massive, and growing fast. Here’s some numbers for you – right now AR is a 10 billion dollar market, by 2024 it’s expected to be a 72 billion dollar market. Yes – you read that right, 7x growth in the next four years. Here’s the full scoop:

The report Augmented Reality Market by Offering (Hardware (Sensor, Displays & Projectors, Cameras), Software), Device Type (Head-mounted, Head-up), Application (Enterprise, Consumer, Commercial, Healthcare, Automotive), and Region – Global Forecast to 2024″, is estimated to grow from USD 10.7 billion in 2019 and projected to reach USD 72.7 billion by 2024; it is expected to grow at a CAGR of 46.6% from 2019 to 2024. The healthcare sector has witnessed rapid technological advancements over the years, and various kinds of advanced imaging equipment have been introduced in the healthcare sector. The healthcare sector has one of the most important and practical applications of AR in the current market scenario.(Source – MarketsAndMarkets)

I’m pretty excited about .AR and while .COM has been and likely always will be my go-to domain name extension I will likely be adding some .AR names to my portfolio in March.

What do you think about .AR? I want to hear from you – comment and let your voice be heard!

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton