Domain name registrants in Europe are increasingly favouring ccTLDs over gTLDs, and have shown comparatively little interest in the new gTLDs, the most recent CENTR survey has found.In the third DomainWire Global TLD Report for 2016, CENTR found new generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs) have on average a smaller share (2.5%) of the European market compared to a global share (6.8%) as of the end of September. And they are most popular in Armenia and Russia where .top and .xyz respectively are both popular.Over the past 12 months, the report finds the average TLD share in Europe has moved in favour of local country code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs – 46% in July 2015 to 51% in July 2016). ccTLDs (based on local registrants) have effectively been growing at higher rates than gTLD registrations across Europe.The report also found legacy gTLDs such as .com grew a combined 0.6% in the third quarter to over 163 million domains – a similar rate to the previous quarter. Most of the growth in legacy gTLDs comes from .com. When looking at statistics on RegistrarStats.com, it shows a number of legacy gTLDs have been declining in registration numbers, either commencing with the release of new gTLDs or the drop off being exacerbated with their commencement.New gTLDs have on average a smaller share (2.5%) of the European market when measured against its global share (6.8%). New gTLDs have made the most inroads in Armenia and Russia which has had increased registrations from .top and .xyz respectively.Growth rates for the new gTLDs are also tapering off. The report finds that with the bulk of new gTLDs now delegated, their high initial growth rates are beginning to converge toward comparable median rates of legacy gTLDs and ccTLDs (monthly growth rates of 0.43% and 0.58% respectively for the third quarter). There are currently around 25 million domain names registered across all the new gTLDs that have been delegated, with over 500 brand gTLDs, where there are very few domains due to their closed nature, and 1,139 new gTLDs delegated by ICANN.Global distribution between TLD categories is weighted toward gTLDs (legacy and new combined). ccTLDs (including IDN ccTLDs) have a combined market share of 43% – a reduction of 2% over the quarter due to a decline in .tk (Tokelau) registrations. New gTLDs have attained almost 7% of market share at the end of the third quarter; however, it’s worth noting this is calculated over almost 1,200 unique TLDs.Among European ccTLDs there are around 69.2 million registered domain names with a growth of 137,000 (0.2%) over the quarter. The largest of the European ccTLDs is .de (Germany) with 16.14 million domains currently registered followed by .uk (United Kingdom) with 10.02 million registrations.Median ccTLD growth in Europe has averaged to 0.3% over the past 12 months. This is slightly above the global legacy gTLD median; however, the two generally follow the same pattern. High percentage growth ccTLDs were .am (Armenia), .cy (Cyprus) and .pt (Portugal).Over the past 12 months, average TLD share in Europe moved in favour of local ccTLDs (46% in July 2015 to 51% in July 2016). ccTLDs (based on local registrants) have effectively been growing at higher rates than gTLD registrations across Europe.The report is available for download from:
https://www.centr.org/library/library/statistics-report/domainwire-global-tld-report-2016-3.html