CENTR, the Council of European National Top-Level Domain Registries, has released its latest Q1 global TLD report. There’s some interesting data and analysis in the report. The biggest takeaway is that in Europe, ccTLDs (country code domain names) continue to be the most popular option for those seeking to purchase a domain name. 54% of locally registered domains in Europe are now ccTLDs, making them a majority.
There was also fantastic growth with 4.5% year-on-year growth in Q1. Going forward, the interesting metric will be if all the domains that were registered last year (2020) actually get renewed. Renewal rates for European ccTLDs continues to be strong, with an 81.9% renewal rate.
One of the key things leading to the success of ccTLDs in Europe is pricing – with the average price for a ccTLD across the EU being €10, it makes them competitive with .COM and other popular generic TLDs.
There’s also some interesting data in the usage of domains. Of course, many domains may be registered but never used for a website (some can just be used for email among other things). According to CENTR’s data, 48% – almost a majority – are being used for an active, developed website. The difference is split between parked websites or triggered errors – so that means a majority of registered ccTLDs are not being actively used.
Which is a shame!
There’s also some interesting data on the growth in specific domain spaces, including .IE – here are the highlights:
- Europe: .ge (Georgia) +15% to 52K, .pt (Portugal) +11% to 1.3M and .ie (Ireland) +10% to 310K
- Outside Europe: .id (Indonesia) +38% to 494K , .lk (Sri Lanka) +27% to 47K and .ir (Iran) +21% to 1.4M.
- gTLDs: .bar +415% to 116K, .cam +412% to 41K and .page +314% to 227K.
- Geographic-gTLDs: .tokyo +53% to 193K, .miami +37% to 13K and .africa +22% to 27K.
Overall globally, the entire domain space has grown to 354.1 million domains – showing 5.3% year-on-year growth. ccTLDs make up 38% of all domains, while gTLDs make up 62%.
The question on everyone’s mind is whether this growth will continue or if it was a temporary bubble because of COVID. We shall see in the coming months!
You can read the full report and play with the data yourself here.
About the Author: Jonathan Thomas
