Q3 2020 continued with high rates of new domains

The CENTRstats Global TLD Report Q3/2020 has been published and shows that Q3 2020 has seen a continuation of high rates of new domain creations as well as a slight decrease in deletes. Furthermore, for several countries, the national ccTLD also gained market share based on ‘popular website’ ranks from Alexa. This report covers the status and trends in top-level domains with a focus on European ccTLDs (country code top-level domains).

Click here to view the online, interactive report.

Highlights from the report

European market

• Since April 2020, median deletion ratios have decreased, suggesting domain holders are opting to hold on to their domains in larger numbers;
• The enlarged gap between creates and deletions has further pushed up overall growth of domains in ccTLDs;
• Market share as measured by local registrations in CENTR member countries is estimated at 57% in favour of national ccTLDs;

Key observations:

• The median create ratio (new domain registrations normalised to total domains) was 4.4% for Q3 2020. The median deletion ratio in the same period was 3.3%.
• Since April 2020, median deletion ratios have decreased, suggesting domain holders are opting to hold on to their domains in larger numbers.
• The enlarged gap between creates and deletions has further pushed up overall growth of domains in ccTLDs.
• Market share as measured by local registrations in CENTR member countries is estimated at 57% in favour of national ccTLDs. Measured by the TLDs used in popular websites (Alexa ranks) across the region, the overall market share of ccTLDs is 48%. For many countries, their internal market share based on this indicator has increased over the quarter (on average by 2%). This may suggest that for some there is a subtle preference shift from gTLDs to ccTLDs. Reasons for this may be that ccTLDs can offer a more locally-focused identity – an important characteristic for small businesses trying to survive during national lockdowns.
• Retail pricing of domains over the quarter has remained largely stable. The range of price offerings from different registrars and ccTLDs is wide with the middle 50% of prices found between 9 EUR and 19 EUR (inc. VAT) including promotions.
• The rate of ‘high content’ (domains that host functioning web pages that are not used for parking) domains are around 46% for member ccTLDs compared to 25% in the top 100 gTLDs.

Global outlook

• The global market share of domain name registrations is roughly 47% to .com, 33% to recorded ccTLDs (243) and 20% to all other gTLDs;
• For many gTLDs, the margin between domain creates and deletes is very small;
• gTLDs with particularly large quantities of deletes over the quarter were .shop, .dev and .world.

The global market share of domain name registrations is roughly 47% to .com, 33% to recorded ccTLDs (243) and 20% to all other gTLDs. Growth rates in domains have increased over the second quarter with medians of 1.3% among ccTLDs (top 100) and 0.8% for gTLDs (top 300). TLDs with high growth over the quarter include:

• gTLDs: .cam, .bar and .page
• ccTLDs: .ar (Argentina), .py (Paraguay), .lk (Sri Lanka)

For many gTLDs, the margin between domain creates and deletes is very small. While the rates for new domain creations have been increasing since the beginning of the year, deletions are not far behind. This was particularly noticeable in May 2020 when the median deletion rate jumped considerably. gTLDs with particularly large quantities of deletes over the quarter were .shop, .dev and .world.

The pdf version of the report can be found here.