New .eu registrations jumped 15% in the first quarter of 2020 over the corresponding quarter in 2019 on the back of a 64% increase in registrations from Portugal and registrations related to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to EURid’s Q1 2020 Progress Report released this week.
The 15% increase in new registrations meant 190,011 new .eu domain names bringing the total to 3,590,129 at the end of Q1 2020, up from 3,579,689 at the end of Q4 2019, an increase of 0.5 %. The European Union’s top-level domain is the fifth largest of the ccTLDs in Europe behind .de (Germany – 16,385,549), .uk (United Kingdom – 11,878,881), .nl (Netherlands – 5,913,262) and .ru (Russian Federation – 4,971,538).
The total number of .eu registrations was still down on the 3,619,531 from the end of Q1 2019, but that was on the back of a massive decline in British .eu registrations due to Brexit fears, as individuals and organisations in Great Britain will no longer be eligible to hold .eu domains once it has left the European Union.
On those registrations to British registrants, they dropped to 142,600 at the end of 2020’s first quarter, down from 150,024 3 months ago and 188,505 a year ago.
Growth was highest in Portugal – not just 64.4% for the quarter, but 155.0% for the year. No other countries recorded double-digit growth for the quarter – Norway (8.1%) and Latvia (6.5%) were the next best – but there were 3 countries that recorded triple-digit growth for the year – Saint Martin and Mayotte both recorded 100% growth – while Norway (47.7%), Ireland (26.3%) and Slovenia (10.4%) all recorded double-digit growth.
There were some declines apart from the UK’s 4.9% decline for the quarter and 24.4% for the year. These included Gibraltar (15.2% for the quarter and 29.6% for the year). Poland (6.2% and 10.8%), Aland Island (8.3% and 7.1%) and Cyprus (5.5% and 6.9%) while Iceland had a 13.1% decline for the quarter, but 5.8% rise year-on-year.
The countries with the largest total .eu, .ею & .ευ registrations were Germany (979,315), Netherlands (460,955), France (319,838), Italy (264,013) and Poland (237,016), being the countries with more than 200,000 registrations. The UK remains in the top 10 with 142,600 registrations.
And total registrations for these top-level domains managed by EURid (.eu, .ею and .ευ) totalled 3,623,050, up from 3,606,311 at the end of the fourth quarter 2019 but down from 3,661,899 12 months ago.
EURid’s Q1 2020 Progress Report is available for download here [pdf].