2012 was a great year for .be

Today DNS.be (.be registry) published a press release showing that 2012 was a great year for .be registrations.

In 2012 over 300.000 new names were registered during 1 year for the first time. In 2012 306.341 new .be names were registered to be exact. Because of those new registrations the .be extension enters the top 10 of largest European extension. Germany (.de) remains the undisputed leader followed by the United Kingdom (.co.uk) and the Netherlands (.nl). The top 5 is completed by Russia (.ru) and France (.fr). Place 6 and 7 are taken by Italy (.it) and Poland (.pl). Belgium currently holds the tenth place in this ranking and can now start chasing Switzerland (.ch) and Spain (.es), which currently hold the 8th and 9th place.

Furthermore the numbers reveal that 65% of all .be domain names are owned by a Belgian company or individual, 19% of all .be names has an owner for the Netherlands, 6% has an owner from France. The press release also mentions that registering a .be name to link it to a webshop or a blog was very popular in 2012.

At last the numbers show that .be names are spread over different registrars, the top 3 of .be registrars is responsible for 20% of all .be registrations, the top 16 for 50%. Based on this we can conclude that the .be domain name market is a healthy and competitive market.