CENTR report: 64.2 million ccTLD registrations in Europe , 112 million ccTLD world registrations

Council of European National Top level Domain Registries (CENTR) published the DomainWire Stat Reportfor May 2013 that is CENTR’s biannual publication covering basic domain name statistics with a focus on European ccTLDs (country code Top Level Domains). A ccTLD (country code top level domain) is a two-letter domain name extension such as .de (Germany), .es (Spain) or .cz (Czech Republic).

Global Domain Name Status
As at April 2013, the total number of registrations across all Top Level Domains (TLDs) stood at 258million. This figure represents a growth of roughly 6.2% over the past 6 months (or 15 million registrations) with the largest categorical growth in ccTLD IDNs.
When observing ccTLDs against gTLDs we see that ccTLDs have increased their overall market share from 42% to 44% of all domain registrations while gTLDs have decreased slightly in the space of the past 6 months. The increase in ccTLD share is most likely explained by a high growth in the .tk domain (note: most .tk registrations are free)

Registrations* % Change
(6 month)
ccTLD 112,048,971 12%
ccTLDIDN 1,179,723 19%
gTLD 143,854,376 2%
sTLD 1,345,503 16%
Total 258,428,573 6%

*ccTLDs are split into ccTLDs and ccTLD IDN. gTLDs are split into gTLDs and sTLDs

The top 20 largest ccTLDs represent roughly 82% of all ccTLD registrations globally and 35% of all domain name registrations.
One noticeable change in this chart compared to the previous edition is that the .tk domain (Tokelau) has taken the number one rank. It is important to note that .tk offer mostly free domains therefore operating a very different model than other traditional ccTLDs.
From those found in the top 20 list, the below shows the highest growth observed in the past 6 months.

European ccTLDs “Status update”
European ccTLDs closed April 2013 with just over 64 million domains under management. Over the 12 months preceding, overall net growth was 6.7% – an increase of around 4 million domains. This growth however, is a lower rate compared with that of the same period in the year before. This could be most likely explained by factors such as the maturing ccTLD market in Europe (particularly among the larger Operators) as well as the ongoing financial crisis. Renewal rates remain consistent over the past 3 years at around 79% on the whole and actually increasing marginally in some zones.

European ccTLDs Key Stats
ccTLD registrations in Europe 64.2 million
Average Renewal Rate 79%
Highest 12 month Net Growth ccTLD .pt (Portugal) 27%
Largest ccTLD (zone size) .de (Germany) 15.5 million
Domain usage (most common) 61% Commercial
Av. Market share of top 3 Registrars in a zone 46% of registrations
Average characters in a domain name 10.7 characters

The average renewal rate among European ccTLDs stands at 79% as recording in early 2013. Over the different zone sizes, this of course varies as seen to the left. Generally speaking Registries with larger domains under management have a lower renewal rate.

CENTR is the European ccTLD organisation. CENTR is a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to supporting the interest of country code TLD managers. The objectives of CENTR are to promote and participate in the development of high standards and best practices among ccTLD Registries. CENTR has 51 Full members and 9 Associate members who all together represent around 80% of the total number of ccTLD domain nameregistrations worldwide.

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About Konstantinos Zournas

I studied Computer Engineering and Computer Science in London, UK and I am now living in Athens, Greece. I went online in 1995, started coding in 1996 and began buying domain names and creating websites in 2000. I started the OnlineDomain.com blog in 2012.

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