.INFO continues to grow and, according to Afilias, is the number one new gTLD however it is the sixth largest TLD behind .COM, .DE, .NET, .UK and .ORG with more than 6.8 million domain name registrations according to the latest VeriSign Domain Name Industry Brief or seventh largest according to the registry itself.
Afilias is the largest of the new TLDs with approximately 44 per cent of the entire new TLD registration market and being more than double the size of any other new TLD. But they do qualify this noting that new TLDs account for about seven per cent of the 202 million of domain name registrations, with .INFOâs share being around half (3.4%) this market, based on figures in the latest VeriSign Domain Name Industry Brief.
In the year to end of September 2010, .INFO registrations grew by 1.3 million. In the year to June 2010, total domain names under management, according to the report grew by a quarter compared to the seven per cent growth for the industry as a whole.
When divided by region, North America accounts for 58 per cent of all the .INFO domain names registered, however its proportion of domain names has slipped with Europe accounting for one in every four (27%) .INFO registrations, an increase of four percentage points. The Asia Pacific region also increased its proportion of .INFO registrations to twelve per cent. The top three countries for registrations are the US, Germany and then Japan.
There are now around 28,000 .INFO internationalised domain names in ten scripts, with German scripts accounting for 82 per cent of these.
In the aftermarket, the top selling .INFO domain was PayDayLoans.info, selling for $24,000. While this does not place it near the top in reported domain name sales, the average sale price of $2,500 compares favourably compared to other TLDs.
To download the .INFO Domain 2010 Annual Report [PDF], click here.
To register your .INFO domain name, check out America Registry here.