IPv4 Market Summary Q1 2020

IPv4 in 2020

Understanding the intricacies of the IPv4 market can be difficult. We constantly do research to make sure you feel secure knowing that we fully understand the IPv4 market based on data and trend analysis. When you read our short blog post, you will get a better feeling of where things stand.

As the IPv4 address market continues to mature, Brander Group’s team leads the way by publishing market research to help everyone looking to buy or sell IPv4 addresses make educated and data driven decisions.   The data we use is provided directly by ARIN both from their team and the public transfer logs. We then combine their data with historical price trends to help make predictions into the future of the IPv4 market.

So far, 2020 has started out slightly less active as far as the average number of IPv4 transfers over the previous years average.  Furthermore, the total number of actual IPv4 addresses transferred has decreased a significant amount. Looking at Q1 2020 and comparing it to both Q1 of 2019 and Q4 of 2020, there was a decrease of -5% in the average IPv4 transfers.  However, the really interesting variance to note is the leap in demand from 138 IPv4 requests in February to 171 IPv4 requests in March, showing a +24% increase to close out Q1.  Of the total requests for IPv4 in Q1, we see a 93% completion rate, which is great but also down from the average completion rate of 98% in 2019.

As of May, we have noticed an impact from COVID-19 causing companies to ask for more IPv4 address space to support the growing demand of people working from home.  On the other hand, there are many companies who are looking too quickly sell their IPv4 addresses to generate much needed extra funds to prevent employee layoffs.

Right now we know that the larger companies will continue to buy IPv4 addresses  in bulk to support their client demands. The question we all have today is how will COVID-19 affect the IPv4 market in the long term.  Will the need for IPv4 addresses continue to rise as more users work from home, or will it taper off once people are allowed to go back to work?