Over 50,000 .UK registrations in 24 hours, including Sainsburys.uk, Bentley.uk and Burberry.uk

Within 24 hours of opening for registration, new, short .uk web domains topped the sales charts. More than 50,000 domains were registered, making this one of the fastest selling new domain releases on record, and beating the first day sales for all of the current batch of new generic Top Level Domains by a large margin. Of course these are not directly comparable.

“Consumers and brands alike are showing their trust in .uk domains, with our registration rates climbing to ten times the typical daily rate.  We’re thrilled with the response, which shows the excitement people feel about the shorter, sharper domain within the trusted .uk namespace ,” comments Eleanor Bradley, Chief Operating Officer at Nominet.

Following British icon and tech enthusiast Stephen Fry’s switch, Nominet’s sales channel – domain name registrars – have seen phenomenal interest in the new .uk domains and the rate of registration climbed throughout the first working day of its launch. Brands including Sainsbury’s, Bentley and Burberry were among those to register their short .uk domains within the first few hours of availability.

Over ten million existing UK domain holders are being offered first choice on the shorter equivalent of their current address. Nominet will be contacting these customers to ensure they’re aware of their opportunity to exercise this right.