The number of .fr domain names grew 5.8% in 2021 to end the year with 3,882,448 to continue the ccTLD’s boost during the COVID pandemic, according to Afnic’s Report of .FR in 2021 released last week. This compares to 3,670,372 .fr domain names registered at the end of 2020 when growth was 7.0%. In pre-pandemic times, 2019, growth was 3.7%.
The growth in .fr exceeded the 3.6% growth in the French market for all TLDs combined and exceeded growth in the EU zone (2.9%) and the global market (0.7%).
Creations of new .fr domain names unsurprisingly has also been higher during the pandemic with 793,441 in 2020 and 776,514 in 2021. New domain name registrations were still up 12% on 2019’s figures.
The growth in .fr has seen market share continue to increase, reaching almost 2 in 5 (38.75%) domain names registered in France in 2021 (compared to 38.0% in 2020). This 0.8 percentage point increase exceeds that of .com (0.6 percentage point). The market share of .fr has been constantly rising for the last 5 years, increasing by 3.1 percentage points, while .com has only gained 1.9 percentage points.
To download Afnic’s Report of .FR in 2021 (only in French), click here [pdf].