Registrations of .EU domain names increase increased by 100,802, or three per cent, to 3.51 million during the quarter to end December 2011, EURid reported in their Quarterly Progress Report for the fourth quarter 2011.Year-on-year the total number of registrations increased of 5.5 per cent or 182,275. The number of Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs) also increased, although by a lesser amount, increasing by 67,074 or 1.6 per cent of all registrations with the number of IDNs as a percentage of new registrations at the same level as that of other registries.The .EU ccTLD is now the sixth largest ccTLD, behind .DE (Germany), .UK (United Kingdom), .TK (Tokelau), .NL (Netherlands) and .RU (Russian Federation).In the aftermarket, there were 21,174 domains out of a total of 3.51 million traded. This means that about one domain out of 170 was traded, unchanged from Q4 2010. In addition, there were a total of 860 accredited .EU registrars by the end of the quarter.The top ten countries for .EU registrations accounted for 84.4 per cent of all registrations and annual growth of over ten per cent was recorded in 11 European Union countries, these being Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Greece, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.During the fourth quarter, the total number of .EU registrations increased in 23 of the 27 European Union Member States. Malta, Austria and France all saw growth of more than six per cent.The national ccTLD market in EU countries increased by 2.3 per cent during Q4 2011, and grew by 9.6 per cent from Q4 2010. Within the EU, the market for gTLD domain names such as .COM, .NET, .ORG, .INFO and .BIZ grew by 0.3 per cent during Q4 2011 and by 6.2 per cent from Q4 2010, according to statistics from Zooknic.Renewal rates for .EU domains remained high according to the report. 81.6 per cent of registered .EU domain names were renewed in 2011 and the ccTLD has maintained a renewal rate of over 80 per cent for the past five years. This compares to the .COM/.NET renewal rate for the fourth quarter of 73.5 per cent, up from 73.3 per cent for the third quarter and consistently around 73 per cent during 2011, according to the latest Verisign Domain Name Industry Brief.”I am pleased to see the extent of .eu consumer loyalty. The strong renewal rate for 2011 shows that end-users have a sustained interest in renewing their .EU domain names,” said EURid’s General Manager, Marc Van Wesemael.The full report for Q4 2011 is available for download at: link.eurid.eu/reports.