Nominet (the .co.uk registry) has just released its annual ‘Domain name industry’ report. The report contains some interesting findings and results.
One of the first things the report mentions is that in September 2009, 187.6 million domain names were registered worldwide. This is an increase of 8% compared to September 2008, meaning that between September 2008 and September 2009 13.5 million new names were registered.
Further the report reveals that the registration of gTLDs (generic extensions such as .com, .net, .org, ..) increased by 6%, while registrations of ccTLDs (country extensions such as .be, .nl, .fr ,…) increased by 10%.
If we take a closer look into the ccTLDs, we notice it that the .cn extension (China) lost its leadership position. During 2007 and 2008 the number of .cn domain names increased from 2 million to 13 million but in 2009 but it all fell down a bit. This made the .de extension (Germany) able to become the leading ccTLD.
Nominet also compiled a list of the 20 most registered ccTLDs. All these ccTLDs, except China, grew between September 2008 and September 2009. The findings also reveal that the registrations of extensions within the top 20 rose by 9.5% last year, records from outside the top 20 ccTLDs grew by 15%.
These top 20 also makes it very clear that the market penetration of domain names is best represented in Western Europe. The Netherlands are doing the best job on this with 1 domain per 5 inhabitants, but also Denmark, Switzerland, Germany and the United Kingdom are doing great with 1 domain per 10 inhabitants. In Belgium, the penetration 1 per 9 inhabitants. Worldwide there are 28 domain names per 1000 inhabitants, where in 2007 we talked only about 23 domain names per 1000 inhabitants. So the domain name market is still growing significantly.
Furthermore, the report also zooms in on what names do well in the UK itself. They took a look at which names the Brithish people registered primarily between 2005 and 2009. A remarcable conclusion is that the .com domain doesn’t do so well. Where in 2005 a growth of 38% was measured for this domain, it only grw by 5% during 2009. The .co.uk domain itself does pretty well. Moreover the findings also shows that 69% of .co.uk names are renewed.
If we take into consideration the entire report, we can conclude that ccTLDs are becoming more and more important. They have a larger growth than the generic extensions, they are renewed often and they have a good market penetration.