The number of Domain registrations worldwide is growing at a staggering pace. According to the latest data sheet released by Verisign, the global leader in domain registration and internet security, the total number of domains registered reached 334.6 million TLDs (Top Level Domains) by the end of June 2016. In Q2 2016 alone, 7.9 million new domains were registered, resulting in 2.4% increase over the first quarter of 2016.
Low-budget yet feature-enriched smartphones have led to steady internet adoption worldwide. With the majority of the audience shifting to the web, it is mandatory for every business to have an online presence. And to do that, registering a domain name is the first step. The domain name is like a unique identity of the business or individual on the web. Hence, it isn’t a surprise that businesses and individuals are in a rush to get their unique domain names registered.
Although .Com TLD is the most popular one; it is also the most saturated one. Every common name with a.Com TLD is already registered. Despite the saturation, businesses and individuals seem to prefer a domain name with .Com, albeit with some work around.
By the end of June 2016, around 143.2 million domains with .Com or .Net TLDs were registered. However, it is the .Com TLD that enjoys the lion’s share of the total registered domain names. Around 127.5 million domain names are .Com TLDs, followed by .Net TLD with 15.8 million domain names.
Other TLDs Are Gaining Grounds
Data from the second quarter also highlights some interesting shifts in the world of Internet.
Due to the non-availability of domain names with .com and .net TLD, individuals, and businesses are now preferring other TLDs. They are not changing their names but just the TLDs, like .co, .ws, .name, or, country specific TLDs, like .us, .uk, .in, etc. As a result, the quarterly growth of .Com and .Net TLDs have declined considerably in the second quarter of 2016. In Q2 2016, new domain names registered with .com and .net TLDs reached 8.6 million, slightly down from 8.7 million in the year-ago quarter.
This slight decline is a clear indication of the beginning of a new internet revolution.
The Verisign report highlights that ccTLDs (Country Specific Top level Domains) accounted 45% share of total domains that were registered during the second quarter of 2016. The total registration of ccTLD domains clocked 149.9 million during the second quarter, a negligible 1% growth compared to the previous quarter.
.tk, .cn and .de emerged as the top three ccTLDs, beating .uk, .au and .us.
In August 2011, ICANN founding member introduced gTLD – generic Top Level Domains, like .xys, .cloud, .rich etc. At that time, many people did argue that gTLDs are unnecessary. Today, nearly after five years, the growth of the internet has a different story to tell. In the current time, looking at the rush for domain names, his introduction of gTLDs is a boon! In Q2 2016, the registration of gTLDs totalled 22 million. With 6.6% share of total domains registered in the second quarter, gTLDs are gaining grounds. The three most popular gTLDs are .xyz, .top and .wang.
As of 20 September 2016, there are 1641 TLDs available for people to register their domain with. As the demand for Geographical and category based gTLDs is on the rise, most of the top popular brands have applied for Brand TLD to secure their names. For example, the Internet giant Yahoo! has applied for .yahoo while Google is waiting for .google to be approved by ICANN.
