At the end of every quarter, Verisign publishes its Domain Name Industry Brief. This highly anticipated publication has become a must read for everyone in the domain industry. For the quarter ending December 31, 2010, Verisign has just published the latest brief. For the full report click here.
Domain Name Industry Brief Highlights:
- There are now more than 205.3 million domain registrations across all Top Level Domains (TLDs), an increase of 3.5 million domain names, 0r 1.7 percent over the third quarter, registrations have grown by 12.1 million, or 6.3 percent over the past year.
- Country Code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs) reached 80.1 million domain names, a 1.1 percent increase quarter over quarter, and a 0.3 percent increase year over year. There are more than 240 ccTLD extensions globally, with the top 10 ccTLDs comprising 61 percent of all registrations.
- Poland and Australia also joined the Russian federation and the United States as top 20 ccTLDs exceeding 20 percent year-over-year growth. Among the 20 largest ccTLDs, Poland, Australia, Canada and Switzerland exceeded 4 percent quarter over quarter growth. Last quarter, four of the top 20 met the same threshold.
- .ORG moved up once notch and is now the 4th largest TLD industry wide. The .CO.UK dropped one notch to 5th place overall.
- With one hundred million registered of .com and .net domains, Verisign estimates that 88 percent of .com and .net domain names resolve to a website