There were 192 million domain names registered around the world at the end of 2009, an increase of eleven million registrations over the previous quarter, according to the latest Domain Name Industry Brief published by VeriSign.Over the previous twelve months, registrations increased by 15 million, an increase of eight per cent over the fourth quarter of 2008 and two per cent over the third quarter of 2009.In their report VeriSign does not give a breakdown of .COM and .NET domain names, for which it is the registry for both, but gives a combined total, which at the end of 2009 was 96.7 million domain names. The breakdown is approximately 79 million .COM registrations and 17 million .NET registrations. This represents a two per cent increase over the third quarter and a seven per cent increase over the same quarter in 2008. The renewal rate for the fourth quarter of 2009 was 71 per cent which represents a slight change from the third quarter of 2009 which was approximately 70.5 per cent.The base of country code Top Level Domain Names (ccTLDs) rose to 78.6 million domain names, a three percent quarter over quarter and a 10 percent increase year over year increase (almost 7.5 million). In terms of total registrations, .COM continues to have the highest base followed by .CN (China), .DE (Germany), .NET and .UK (United Kingdom).ccTLDs as a whole experienced a three per cent increase quarter over quarter and an 10 percent increase over the same quarter of 2008. There are more than 240 ccTLD extensions globally, with the top 10 ccTLDs comprising 66 per cent of the total number of ccTLD registrations.The largest 25 ccTLDs saw quarterly growth rates that were the same or slower than in the third quarter, reflecting normal seasonal slowdowns. For example, only four of the top 25 largest ccTLDs increased the size of their base at the same rate that they did in the third quarter; the remainder increased the size of their base at a slower rate than they did in third quarter.There was notable growth quarter over quarter among several of the top 25 largest ccTLDs. Registrations for Russian Federation (.RU) domain names grew the fastest with an eight percent increase quarter over quarter. Brazil (.BR), Australia (.AU), France (.FR), and Poland (.PL) all grew six per cent over the quarter. When viewed on an annual basis, five ccTLDs surpassed the 20 per cent mark for year over year growth including .RU (37 per cent), .BR (27 per cent), .PL (26 per cent), .AU (23 per cent) and .FR (23 per cent). The .CN base, which had been experiencing remarkable growth as high as 467 per cent year over year, slowed its growth and ended the fourth quarter with a one per cent decline in its base.The Chinese ccTLD, .CN, regained its position as the largest ccTLD in terms of the total base of domain name registrations, with .DE and .UK as the next largest ccTLDs. Year over year, .UK’s growth rate topped the list at 11 per cent. Rounding out the top three ccTLDs were .DE, with a seven per cent increase year over year, and .CN, with a one per cent decline in growth year over year. Together, the bases of domain name registrations for these three ccTLDs represented 44 per cent of all ccTLD domain name registrations.VeriSign’s average daily Domain Name System (DNS) query load during the fourth quarter was 52 billion per day with peaks as high as 61 billion per day – roughly equal to the average and peak queries per day in third quarter 2009. DNS query load jumped 48 percent for the daily average and 31 percent increase for peak daily queries, as compared to fourth quarter 2008.The report also includes a list of the oldest 25 currently registered .COM domain names. The list is:
DOMAIN NAME & DATE
- symbolics.com March 15, 1985
- bbn.com April 24, 1985
- think.com May 24, 1985
- mcc.com July 11, 1985
- dec.com September 30, 1985
- northrop.com November 7, 1985
- xerox.com January 9, 1986
- sri.com January 17, 1986
- hp.com March 3, 1986
- bellcore.com March 5, 1986
- sun.com March 19, 1986
- ibm.com March 19, 1986
- ti.com March 25, 1986
- intel.com March 25, 1986
- att.com April 15, 1986
- gmr.com May 8, 1986
- tek.com May 8, 1986
- fmc.com July 10, 1986
- ub.com July 10, 1986
- grebyn.com August 5, 1986
- ge.com August 5, 1986
- bell-atl.com August 5, 1986
- stargate.com August 5, 1986
- isc.com August 5, 1986
- nsc.com August 5, 1986.
VeriSign’s February 2010 Domain Name Industry Brief is available in English, with Portuguese and Spanish versions to follow, from:
www.verisign.com/domainbrief.