There were 193,648 new .be domain registrations in 2007, the fifth year running the record has been beaten, with there now being 736,498 .be domain names registered. This was 46,626 more paying domain names than at the end of 2006, a growth of 31.7 per cent.

“These figures confirm that the growth in the number of new registrations has been maintained,” stated Marc Van Wesemael, General Manager of DNS BE. “We believe that this trend will continue in the future.” He also added, “Although it comes as no surprise to learn that most “.be” domain names are registered by businesses, we are still seeing growing interest from year to year among private individuals in registering a domain name aimed increasingly at private usage.”

There were some interesting statistics to note:

• private registrants accounted for 33.85 per cent of registrations, with 27.4 per cent of total registrations now for private use compared to 26.8 per cent at the end of 2006
• residents in the Flanders region of Belgium accounted for 69 per cent of all registrations, 17 per cent in Wallonia and 14 per cent in Brussels, all very similar to 2006
• there has been a steady increase in the number of domain name registrations to registrants outside Belgian to 42.7 per cent of registrations in 2007 compared to 37.8 per cent in 2006
• the largest .be registrar is French and there are four non-Belgian registrars in their top ten
• the top ten registrars accounted for 39.53 per cent of registrations in 2007, consolidating their grip on registrations, which compares to 37.4 per cent in 2006 with 16 registrars (compared to 17 in 2006) responsible for half of all domain name registrations.