February 2, 2015
While the growth rate may have slowed, the .AU domain space remains rock solid.
Behind The Dot : State Of The .AU Domain has just been released and shows .AU has grown to almost 3 million domains (2,937,766 as at 4.30pm today).
The growth rate of the name space has settled to around 6% pa; so while domains under management volumes continue to increase - it's at a slower rate. At its zenith in 2007/08; the growth rate was an astounding 30%+.
"When considering Australia's population of 23 million approximately, it is an achievement that .au finds itself consistently within the top ten of all 283 country codes," said Adrian Kinderis, CEO of Ausregistry; the .AU Registry Operator.
"In 2015 .au continues to be relevant to .au Registrants while Australian Internet users trust .au and interact with .au because of its connection to Australia. The management of the .au namespace continues to succeed in promoting and maintaining a stable and secure utility."
Australia has one of the highest per capita registration rates across all Asia Pacific Top Level Domains (APTLD).
The .COM.AU extension accounts for the lion's share of all Australian domains under management; followed by .NET.AU quite some distance behind. Names ending in .COM.AU represented of 84% of all creates last year, with .NET.AU accounting for 14%. Other extensions such as .ORG.AU, .ID.AU and .ASN.AU made up the remainder.
With regard to renewal rates, the report states domains renewed for the third or subsequent time are greater than 80% likely to renew again. First time renewals are least likely to renew due to the increased likelihood of these registrations being impulse purchases or the business they are associated with having failed or not gotten off the ground. The .AU standard registration period is two years.
Behind The Dot : State Of The .AU Domain can be viewed in full here (PDF)
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