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There is a high correlation between the registrations of domain names and companies being created, the latest Afnic Domain Name Industry Report has found.
From January 2007 until mid-2013, Afnic found there is a high correlation that is consistent throughout the years. However there are aberrations such as in 2008/2009, the rate declined due to the introduction of the auto-entrepreneur status in January 2009 with a large number of people opting for this tax status Then in December 2011 with the opening of .fr to all Europeans and then again with the introduction of domains with IDN characters also saw a drop in the correlation.
Afnic says there are two conclusions that can be drawn from their research, these being that most new companies integrate “internet” issues in their strategies by registering at least one domain name and that the domain name is usually a .fr domain.
This reflects research conducted by other ccTLDs, with the most recent being for .au that was released this week (see here or here) that showed around 56 percent of Australians, or 74 percent of those who register a domain, choose .au for their online presence.