February 6, 2015
The domain industry across the ditch has been celebrating after a major registration milestone was reached in the early evening of Wednesday 28th January 2015.
InternetNZ recently announced the 600,000th .NZ domain name was registered on that day. The body says recent growth has been supported by the launch of shorter .NZ domain names; which occurred in September 2014. Previously, registrants would need to use an extension such as .CO.NZ.
The 500,00th .NZ domain was registered in September 2012; so growth since that time compared to previous growth rate has been substantial.
"The Internet has brought the world to our doorstep and despite the almost limitless choices that people now have, recent research shows that Kiwis continue to overwhelmingly see .nz as the most trust-worthy domain space," said InternetNZ Chief Executive, Jordan Carter.
InternetNZ has been managing the .NZ country code top level domain (ccTLD) since 1996, after Waikato University ceased running of the registry due to increasing demand for .NZ names.
So how do the Kiwis stack up against Aussies in terms of registrations?
According to the World Bank, New Zealand had a population of 4.471 million in 2013. So just based on that number, .NZ uptake is one domain name per 7.45 people.
Australia's population in 2013 was 23.13 million. As at 5.30pm today, there were 2,942,550 .AU domains registered - one per 7.86 people.
But aside from the somewhat dated population statistics, there's also a significant difference between the .AU and .NZ registries.
Unlike the situation with .AU names, .NZ registrants don't need to be based in New Zealand or have a registered presence in the country.
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