International domain acquisition

I am writing this post as I had done this research myself few months back and it was harder for me to find this information. Hope this is helpful and saves some time in doing all the research.

Goal: Acquire international domains to establish and protect our brand.

Building domain portfolio:

First step in this process is to find a domain registrar that can help us in acquiring domains. These companies can be evaluated based on many factors:

1. Cost of domains
2. International domain coverage
3. Local registration support, knowledge of local trademark registration and various other requirements.
4. Infrastructure to take care of international domain transfer and renewal
5. Brand protection services and domain retrieval services. 

Based on above, domain registration companies can be classified as follows (as on mid September - 2007):

Good solution: To acquire 58 domains

1. Buy all domains with no restriction from cheapest providers or directly:
1. 13 ccTLDs that have no restriction and local requirements should be bought through Godaddy & enom. Cost ~ $600
2. Buy domains with restrictions through cheaper registrar:
1. 16 ccTLDs with restriction that are available through registries like AsiaRegistry & EuroDNS. Cost ~ $1500.
2. 25 ccTLDs with restriction that are only available through 101Domain or MarkMoniker. Cost ~ $3500.

Total expense = $5K per year. (1^st year ~ 8.5K as some ccTLDs require minimum of 2 year registration)

Also, in terms of prioritizing - 25 international domains that have 98% of online traffic (only cc TLDs  listed in no particular order):

1. .com.ar
2. .ca
3. .dk
4. .com.mx
5. .com.tw
6. .at
7. .cc
8. .fr
9. .nl
10. .co.uk
11. .com.au
12. .ch
13. .it
14. .no
15. .org.uk
16. .be
17. .cn
18. .jp
19. .co.nz
20. .us
21. .com.br
22. .de
23. .co.kr
24. .tv
25. .ws