Country Code Top Level Domains on the Rise

Latest global domain name counts for ccTLDs

Country code domains outperformed other domains in percentage growth over the last year. An additional 10.5M domain name registrations, that’s a 7.2% growth rate, bringing the total to 156.8M. .cn, the country code top level domain (TLD) for China, stands at 23M registrations and is second only to the behemoth .com TLD with its 141M registrations.

Data from the Verisign Domain Name Industry Brief for Q1 2019 shows growth across the board bringing the total to 351.8M names registered across all domains (up from 342M in 2018).

Generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs)

New gTLDs did not fair so well, with an decrease of only 0.8M on the previous quarter, though this is to be expected given some of the changes in the market, particularly the changes at GRS Domains (Previously Famous Four) who have dropped 3M domains since August. Overall though new gTLDs are up since the same time last year with an increase of 2.8M to a total of 23M.

The market for domains overall continues to rise, but it’s clearly soft in places and subject to the whims of cheap name promotions and the impacts of strategic direction changes of significant portfolio holders.

Source: Zooknic, Q1 2019; Verisign, Q1 2019; Centralised Zone Data Service, Q1 2019