Afnic : .FR TLD Grew 8.2% in 2013
Afnic, the company behind .FR domain has recently provided a quantitative overview of the .FR TLD in 2013.The report showed 8,2% growth of the .FR TLD in 2013, against 7,1% for the world market average.
You can read the announcement after the jump:
“At 31 December 2013 the .fr TLD represented 2,716,027 domain names, an increase of 8.2% in 2013. Although this performance remains higher than the average for the world market (7.1 % according to our estimates), it was significantly lower than in 2012.
The .fr TLD is following the global trend towards a market downturn in domain names worldwide, of greater significant this year after several years of significant outperformance.
This outperformance can be seen on the French market where the .fr TLD continues to gain market share, with 36.5% against 36% at year-end 2012. This can be largely explained by the poor performance of the .com name space in France (+5.6 %) in 2013.
The major factors that help to explain these developments are:
The slowdown in the economy, in the past the correlation between companies founded and domain names filed under the .fr TLD being close to 90%; the slowdown also affects the renewal rate, since registrants are less likely to keep unused names
Developments in uses (tablets, social media, etc.) that potentially affect the browsing habits of Internet users and their modes of access to content; the impact of these changes could not be accurately determined until now and studies published by other registries even claim that it is marginal.
After high growth subsequent to opening .fr domain names to individual holders in June 2006, since 2011 the segment has grown in a way very similar to that of corporate holders. Numerous indicators also suggest that many of these names registered by individuals are for business purposes, particularly in the case of self-employed entrepreneurs.
Names registered by holders located in the French overseas departments and territories account for 0.3% of the total (9,221 names) while holders located abroad still represent 4.9 % of the total portfolio (132,196 names); the latter is a slightly higher percentage, proving that the .fr TLD tends to expand overseas at the same rate as on its domestic market. It is worth noting that the Paris department alone accounts for 412,145 names, or 15.2 % of the total number of domain names registered under the .fr TLD.
Finally, DNSSEC is continuing to gain ground with 3.79% of signed names (102,898) while there is a certain degree of stagnation in accented names of the “IDN” type, with 26,828 names (1%).”
Check out EuroDNS here to register your .FR domain name.
