The .co TLD, rebranded from being the Colombian ccTLD to being a “generic” TLD has been a hit since with registrations passing the two million mark in January, and despite increasing competition from the new gTLDs growth has grown ten percent in 2014 to 18 percent in 2015.”Since its global launch five years ago, .CO continues to grow and has become the domain name of choice for innovators, entrepreneurs and businesses in more than 200 countries around the world,” said Sean Kaine, Vice President of Registry at Neustar.Global brands like Twitter (t.co and Vine.co), Google (g.co and campus.co) and Taco Bell (ta.co) have all used .co domains and helped to bring mainstream awareness and adoption to .CO.Additionally, hundreds of thousands of innovators, entrepreneurs and start-ups have chosen .co as their domain, including high profile organizations like 500 Startups (500.co), Angel List (Angel.co), Up Global (Up.co) and Common Bond (CommonBond.co) to name just a few.Demand has grown in China as well. In the last quarter there has been a sharp rise in demand from Chinese investors. Interest from China has been particularly strong in connection with two-character number-number and letter-letter premium domain names.As part of their “celebration” in reaching the two million mark, Neustar have provided some facts about the two million registered .co domains:
- In 2010, .co had 28,000 domain name registrations. Surpassing 2 million registrations represents a greater than 7,000% increase in growth since the global launch of the namespace.
- The .CO renewal rate continues to show high usage of domains in a similar fashion to the industry standard, at around 50% for first year renewals and increasing to 80% for domains registered for more than five years (i.e. domains that have been renewed more than five times since 2010).
- .CO is a global namespace, with 50% of registrations coming from the US, 11% from the UK, 5% from Colombia, 4% from Canada and 3% from India.
- With over 3 billion Internet users around the world, and increasing demand for short, memorable, domain names, Mr. Kaine said he expects demand for .CO to continue among startups, innovators and entrepreneurs – especially in growing economies like India and China.