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Verisign
(the administrator of the .com
and .net TLDs) has released
their latest quarterly Domain
Name Industry Brief
covering the 4th quarter of
2020. The quarter closed with 366.3
million domain name
registrations across all
top-level domains (TLDs)
worldwide, a rare decrease
of approximately 4.4 million
domains from the previous
quarter, representing
a 1.2% decline
However, the 366.3 million total
is 4 million more than the
number at the same point a year
ago, a 1.1% uptick.
The
decline from the previous quarter
can be traced to just three
TLDs as Kevin Murphy
detailed in a post an DomainIncite.com
Tuesday. Kevin noted that .tk,
an extension that offers free
domains, dropped 2.8 million
registrations from the previous
quarter, .icu lost 1.9
million and .top
plunged by 900,000. That
trio's cumulative loss of 5.6
million names would account
for all of the 4.4. million
reduction and then some.
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Verisign's dominating .com
TLD was the biggest tower of strength in the market. The .coms added 1.5
million domains from the previous quarter and were up 6.3 million
year over year, a 4.3% annual jump for the world's most popular
extension. Meanwhile, Verisign's .net has remained anchored, almost
eerily so, for a full year now. At the end of 2019, approximately 13.4
million .nets were registered. At the of the 3Q-2020, the number was
still 13.4 million and at the end of 2020 it was, yep, 13.4 million.
That's certainly better than going backwards, something .net had been doing
for a long time before finally stabilizing.
On the ccTLD
front, .tk drug down the whole category with their loss of 2.8
million domains. Without out that, the country domains would have been up
over a million domains from the previous quarter instead of showing an
overall loss of 1.7 million names. Year over year, the ccTLDs were up,
gaining 1.3 million names (about 1%) to close with 158.9 million
names registered.
The new gTLDs,
on the other hand, went backwards both quarter to quarter and year over
year. The group lost 4.2 million domains from the previous quarter.
Two-thirds of that deficit can be pinned on .icu and .top. However, year
over year, the new Gs still lost 3.3 million domains, an 11% drop to
the 26 million they had at the end of 2020.
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While
the Verisign report gave us some great insight into the domain
registration market, another report, from Escrow.com, provided
a peak into what has been a surge in the domain aftermarket. In
their latest quarterly |
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Domain
Investment Index (.pdf file) covering 4Q-2020,
Escrow.com reported closing $93.8 million worth of domain sales
on their platform, a powerful 21% leap from the $77.5
million they booked in the previous quarter. The report goes on to
slice and dice the various kinds of domains the money came from that
does an excellent job of showing you where the biggest strengths and
weaknesses are in the current market. |
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