Domain name registrations grew by one million in the first quarter of 2010 according to the latest Domain Name Industry Brief published by VeriSign, despite .CN registrations declining by over 4.5 million, showing that the seemingly never-ending growth in domain name registrations continues.
The report found that at the end of the first quarter of 2010 there was a
base of more than 193 million domain names registered across all Top
Level Domain Names (TLDs), an increase of 11 million domain name
registrations, or 6 percent, compared to the first quarter of 2009.
Compared to the fourth quarter of 2009, domain name registrations grew
0.6 percent.
The overall base of .COM and .NET domain names grew to 99.3 million
domain names in the first quarter of 2010. This represents a 2.7 percent
increase over the fourth quarter and a 7 percent increase over the same
quarter in 2009. New .COM and .NET registrations were added at an
average of approximately 2.7 million per month in the first quarter of
2010 for a total of 8.1 million new registrations in the quarter. The
renewal rate for the first quarter of 2010 was 72 percent, an increase
from the fourth quarter of 2009, which was 71.2 percent. Quarterly
renewal rates may deviate a few percentage points in either direction
each quarter based upon the composition of the expiring base and the
contribution of specific registrars.
The first quarter of 2010 ended with 76.3 million ccTLD domain name
registrations, a decrease of 2.3 million domain name registrations (or
2.9 percent) compared to the fourth quarter of 2009, but an increase of
nearly 2.4 million (or 3.2 percent) from a year ago. This decrease was
heavily impacted by a decrease in .CN (China) registrations from
13,459,133 to 8,844,196, a total decrease of 4,614,937 registrations.
The large drop in .CN registrations is probably due to changes in
registration requirements and promotions that were running one year ago
with many registrants not re-registering their domain names due to
increased costs. Quarter over quarter, .CN registrations fell 34.3
percent, or 36 percent year over year.
Among the largest ccTLDs, there was notable zone growth quarter over
quarter in the United States (.US) with 15.9 percent, Poland (.PL), with
7.5 percent, and .RU with 7.4 percent growth. Switzerland (.CH) saw no
change, while Spain (.ES) saw a slight decline of 0.2 percent.
There are more than 240 ccTLD extensions globally, with the top 10
ccTLDs comprising 62 percent of the total number of registrations.
While VeriSign publish a comprehensive report on domain registrations,
they only publish an official figure in their Domain Name Industry Brief
for combined .COM and .NET domain registrations. But according to a
graph in the report there are slightly fewer than 80 million .COM
registrations and about 20 million .NET registrations.
The TLD with the most registrations continues to be .COM, however there
have been some changes in rankings following. The German ccTLD (.DE) was
the second largest TLD at the end of quarter one followed by .NET and
then .CN.
Following were .UK (United Kingdom), .ORG, .INFO, .NL (Netherlands), .EU
(European Union) and .RU (Russia).
VeriSign's average daily Domain Name System (DNS) query load during
first quarter 2010 was 54 billion per day with peaks as high as 63.2
billion per day. Compared to fourth quarter 2009, the daily query
average and the daily peak queries both saw an increase of 4 percent.
Taken annually, the daily average increased 41 percent and the peak
daily queries grew 43 percent.
To read more on the latest VeriSign Domain Name Industry Brief, see www.verisign.com/domain-name-services/domain-information-center/industry-brief/.
The report will soon be available in Spanish and Portuguese while
earlier reports are available in all three languages.