Domain name market keeps growing despite crisis
In 2008 the global amount of domain names rose with 16%. At the end of December 2008, there were 177 million domain names registered worldwide. Despite the crises, the domain name market continues to grow. However it is a slower growth then in 2007. In 2007, the total amount of domain names rose with 27% compared to 2006.
The crisis hit the hardest during the fourth quarter of 2008. During this quarter 10,1 million new names were registered. However, over the entire year there was an average of 11,9 million new registrations per quarter. These numbers show quite clearly that there obviously were more new registrations during the first three quarters of 2008 than during the last one.
Of all already existing names 85% were renewed during 2008. If we take a close look to some specific extensions, we notice that only 73% of already existing .com and .net names were renewed during 2008. So the renewals of ccTLD’s definitely increase the global average.
There were also more names registered under a country extension (like .be, .nl, .it,…) than under a generic extension (like .com, .net, .org,…) in 2008. One explanation can be that there are still more interesting domain names left to register under a country extension than under a generic extension. Moreover lots of people tend to search for a domain name under their own country extension. So as a company, you’ll have more chances to be found, when you’re domain name ends on the extension of the country where you’re active than when you use a generic .com or .net name.