During the second quarter of 2013, the total number of .eu domain names under management fell, a trend that has been common in previous years as the anniversary of the TLD comes around and a small percentage of domain registrations are not renewed.

However while quarter on quarter there was a slight fall of 0.5 percent, or 18,837 registrations, to 3.70 million as of the end of June, there was a year-on-year increase of 2.8 percent or 101,964 registrations when compared to the end of quarter two, 2012.

In other statistics included in the latest quarterly progress report, EURid reports the number of .eu internationalised domain names grew to 57,190 or 1.6 percent of all registrations, a similar proportion as with other TLDs while the number of DNSSEC-signed domains grew to 171,274 registrations, or 4.6 percent.

There are also now 774 .eu accredited registrars with the top ten of these accounting for 37 percent of all registrations.

During the second quarter, the total number of .eu registrations increased in 13 of the 28 EU Member States. Slovenia, Bulgaria and Austria all saw growth of more than 5 percent.

The national ccTLD market in EU countries increased by 0.8 percent during Q2 2013, and by 4.4 percent from Q2 2012. Within the EU, the market for gTLD domain names such as .com, .net, .org, .info and .biz grew by 1.7 percent during Q2 2013 and by 3.4 percent from Q2 2012, according to statistics from Zooknic.

The country with the most .eu registrations was Germany with 1,335,468 while the Netherlands was second (397,268) and the USA was third with 222,340.

In other news, the report notes the EURid board expanded to include five new members from European organisations and Croatian was added as a language for the EURid website due to the anticipation of Croatia joining the European Union on 1 July 2013.

To download the 30 page report for the second quarter, go to:
www.eurid.eu/files/publ/Q2_2013.pdf