Global Domain Registration Growth Slows With .NET In Decline: Verisign DNIB

The number of domain names under management around the world is creeping closer towards the 300 million mark, with four million added, an increase of 1.6 percent, across all top level domains in the third quarter of 2014 taking the total to 284 million according to the latest Domain Name Industry Brief published by Verisign.

For the 12 months to the end of September 2014, registrations, or domains under management, increased by 18.1 million or 6.8 percent. This compares to the 12 months to the end of September 2012 when registrations grew by 26.4 million, or 12 percent.

For .com and .net, while they experienced aggregate growth in the third quarter of 2014, .net is in decline in total registration numbers. The combined total for the two gTLDs was 130.0 million in the adjusted zone for .com and .net, up 10.1 million in two years. This represents a 3.3 percent increase year over year compared to a 7.1 percent increase for the equivalent 12 month period two years ago. As of 30 September 2014, the base of registered names in .com equalled 114.9 million names, while .net equalled 15.1 million names compared to 105 million and 14.9 million respectively two years ago.

Looking back at previous DNIBs, .net registrations peaked at around 15.2 million at the end of 2013 and early 2014. But since then the gTLD has shed around 300,000 domains coinciding with the introduction of new gTLDs.

New .com and .net registrations totalled 8.7 million during the third quarter of 2014, compared to 7.8 million in 2012 and 8.3 million in 2013.

The top 10 largest gTLDs and ccTLDs marketed as gTLDs by zone size were .com, .tk, .net, .org, .info, .biz, .co, .mobi, .me and .tv, as of 30 September, accounting for for 179.2 million domain name registrations, or 63.1 percent of the total global domain name registrations.

Total ccTLD registrations were approximately 132.1 million in the third quarter, with the addition of 3.2 million domain names, or a 2.5 percent increase compared to the second quarter of 2014. This is an increase of approximately 12.8 million domain names, or 10.7 percent, from a year ago.

The combined ccTLDs have also been experiencing a slowing of growth. In the year to the end of September 2012, there were 18 million domain names added, or an increase of 20.7 percent.

Among the 10 largest ccTLDs, .tk grew the fastest, at 9.1 percent overall quarter over quarter growth. There were 285 global ccTLD extensions delegated in the root (including Internationalised Domain Names), with the top 10 ccTLDs comprising 67.1 percent of all ccTLD registrations.

For the new gTLDs, there were 413 new gTLDs delegated into the root at the end of the quarter, with 91 new gTLDs delegated during the third quarter of 2014. New gTLD registrations totalled 2.0 million, or 1.3 percent of total gTLD registrations.

During the third quarter of 2014, Verisign’s average daily Domain Name System (DNS) query load was 114 billion (67 billion in 2012) across all TLDs operated by Verisign, with a peak of 318 billion (102 billion in 2012), the highest average and peak query loads in a single quarter to date. Compared to the previous quarter, the daily average increased 20.1 percent and the peak increased 55.6 percent. Year over year, the daily average query load increased 40 percent and the peak query load increased 202.1 percent.

For those interested, this quarter’s DNIB featured article is “Cryptocurrency and the Domain Name System” offering a primer on cryptocurrency and the DNS.

Copies of the 2014 third quarter Domain Name Industry Brief, as well as previous reports, can be obtained at VerisignInc.com/DNIB.

What to Expect at ICANN 52: A Guide for Business Stakeholders

Topics:

The upcoming ICANN 52 public meeting in Singapore and sessions of interest,
Opportunities to follow, participate and join work of business stakeholders in their various constituency groups and,
The latest topics in the Internet domain name and addressing systems.

When: Tuesday, 27 January 2015

04:00-05:00 UTC

Where: Adobe Connect

Speakers:

ICANN Vice President for Global Business Engagement Chris Mondini will be joined by members of the ICANN Asia Pacific hub, and representatives from the ICANN Generic Names Supporting Organization Commercial Stakeholder Group.

How to join:

Link to Adobe Connect: https://icann.adobeconnect.com/gseprojects

*Upon logging into Adobe Connect, a pop up window will provide you the option to dial out to your Phone. Enter your Phone Number* (Remember to change the Country Code if needed).

After joining the call, as a courtesy to others and the presenters, please mute your phone. This can be done by selecting *6 on your keypad. To unmute select *6 again.

If you are Unable to log into Adobe Connect and can only join via phone:

List of International Dial In Numbers:
https://www.myrcplus.com/cnums.asp?bwebid=8369444&ppc=1350793088&num=1-719-867-1571

Participant Passcode: 1350793088

Register:

Fill this form: http://goo.gl/forms/Be5ABhgJI0
Or send an email to
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
including your name, email address, affiliation, and country.

This ICANN announcement was sourced from:
https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2-2015-01-21-en

TV.SE Wins Weekly Sales List at $265,149

TV.SE,sold for $265,149,topped Domain Name Journal sales list of reported domain names for the week,ending January 18,2015.

Sedo had a great week in the sales chart,taking 16 of the top 20 positions .Correspondingly,WebsiteProperties took only one of the top 20 positions .

.COM dominated once again the list,with 172 of the top 20 positions.

Here are the top 20 positions for the two weeks ending January 18,2015 :

1. TV.se     $265,149
2. IZY.com     $40,000
3. Putzfrau.de     €32,000 = $36,480
4. BabyCity.com     $35,000
5. RNR.com     $32,500
6. BMGL.com     $25,000
7. TouchBank.com     $17,000
8. eChecks.com     $15,800
9. Sugar.net     $15,000
10. HEG.es     €13,000 = $14,820
11. Tickets.info     $14,000
12. Jakt.com     €12,000 = $13,680
13. Jupl.com     $12,500
14. ZNQ.com     $11,500
15. EF.com.vn     €10,000 = $11,400
16. AirMouse.com     $11,000
17.tie     FID.org     $10,000
17.tie     Parlam.com     $10,000
19. IGV.com     $9,900
20. Grad.ca     $9,880

Afnic : .FR In 2014 : Relative Performance Always Above the Market

Afnic, the company behind .FR extension, released its January 2015 edition of the Afnic Industry Report . This edition reviews the developments in the French domain name market in 2014.

You can read the announcement after the jump :

“The .fr TLD represented 2,853,406 domain names as at 31 December 2014, an increase of 5.06% in 2014. This performance continued to be higher than that of the French market (+ 4.9%), the world market (+ 4.3% according to our estimates) and the European market (+ 2.2%).
The domain name market in France

According to the data provided by ZookNIC, the domain name market in France represented approximately 7.9 million domain names all TLD types combined, highlighting the market share of the .fr TLD at 36.4% against 36.5% at year-end 2014. The stability of the .fr market share is to be compared with the slowdown in conventional gTLDs (.com, .net, .org, etc.) that dropped from 59% to 57.8 %. The erosion of the conventional gTLD market share is offset almost exactly by the 1.3% market share gained by the new TLDs launched by ICANN early in 2014.

In France, it is therefore the conventional gTLDs that have been impacted by the arrival of the newcomers much more than the .fr TLD. Also worth noting is the fact that the market as a whole saw its growth rate over 12 months stabilize from the summer of 2014 onwards, the launch of numerous nTLDs (nearly 400 opened at year-end 2014) offsetting the slowdown observed since 2012.

At the end of 2014, more than 100,000 new domain names had been registered in France (source: ZookNIC) including 56,000 under the .ovh gTLD, 13,500 for the .paris gTLD, and 3,300 with the .bzh gTLD (source: Afnic). Afnic’s market share as an nTLD registry operator in France was thus approximately 72.5%.
Focus on the .fr TLD

At 31/12/2014, there were 196,807 DNSSEC-signed domain names under the .fr TLD, or 6.9% of the stock (against 102,898 and 3.8% at year-end 2013). The number of signed names almost doubled therefore in 2014.

    The proportion of domain names with accented characters decreased however, down from 1% (26,828 names) at year-end 2013 to 0.9% (24,878 names).
    Holders continued to be mainly concentrated in France (94.3% against 95.1% at year-end 2013). The top five departments in which holders were located were Paris (75), Hauts de Seine (92), the Rhône (69), Haute-Garonne (31) and the Bouches du Rhône (13). These departments alone accounted for 32.3% of the stock of domain names under the .fr TLD at year-end 2014 (against 32.6% at end-2013, a proportion that is remarkable for its stability). Holders located abroad were mainly in Germany, Belgium, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Switzerland, for a total of 68.4% (against 71% in 2013).
    The .fr market continued to be relatively concentrated, the first three registrars having a combined market share of 59.4% at year-end 2014 against 59.6% in 2013. This very slight decline underscores the presence of relatively dynamic “challengers” that managed to gain market share in 2014.