.Eu’s domain name registrations grew 7.6% in the 2nd Quarter of of 2012 compared with one year ago, according to the latest progress report from the .eu top-level domain registry, EURid
.Eu passed 3.6 million registrations during the quarter and had a 85% renewal rate which is higher than .com which traditionally has a renewal rate of around 73%
EURid’s Q2 2012 report shows that Lithuania had the highest annual growth, with a 30% increase of .eu registrations compared with Q2 2011, followed by Malta (29%) and Austria (23%). During the same period, registrations in a further six European Union countries grew by over 10%, namely Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, France, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia.
During the 2nd quarter, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Poland and Slovakia all saw quarterly growth of 5% or more.
You can view the entire report here
Well – they are just doing whatever their governments tells them is good – march march march…
And then they wake up with a great idea – hung over – and $200 and contact the .com owner – just like clockwork
EUrid always seem to be trumpeting the gains in tiny markets. Malta for example has 8,967 .eu domains registered. Lithuania has 20,602. While it might be popular in Eastern European countries, it really isn’t used much in Western Europe and ccTLDs like Germany’s .de and the UK’s .uk dominate their markets. Broken down by EU country, the country level footprint for .eu rarely breaks 3% and is often closer to 1% of domains registered in particular countries.
Only have 1 .eu domain – and IMO the renewal rate is high due to its automatic renewal requirement (you can’t renew them manually.)
The other explanation for the high renewal is that there is a very high level of brand protection registration in the ccTLD and these tend to be very sticky in terms of renewal. They only drop once confidence is lost in a ccTLD or the business fails. The European Commission made a big mistake in giving the administration of .eu ccTLD to what was largely an offshoot of the Belgian ccTLD registry. It was supposed to have been an alternative to .com in the EU but EUrid’s less than stellar performance in the Sunrise and Landrush phases damaged its credibility. This credibility failure for .eu also had the effect of accelerating genuine ccTLD growth in most EU countries. The “Irish” .eu count nearly halved this year due to Dotster dropping a lot of its .eu domains that it had acquired via various front companies in the Landrush. (Dotster was using an Irish front company to hold its .eu domains.) The famous Ovidio operation is a shadow of its former self. Other early market direct navigation operations and some cyberwarehousers have also dropped large numbers of domains in the last five years or so. Germany is really the engine driving .eu registration figures.
“The European Commission made a big mistake”…
“It was supposed to have been an alternative to .com”…
Yes – listen to the Government – they are your friend – they will think for you – and they know what is best for you … march …march … march
This should be the poster child as to why being a new .GTLD operator can be a goldmine. You don’t need an extension popular with domainers to make more money than almost any other traditional investment.
Alan
Exactly
3.6 million registrations at $10 wholesale is $36 Million a year and in the words of Adam Sandler “that ain’t too shabby”
@Michael @Alan Dunn What a lot of people don’t seem to understand about .eu ccTLD is that it is a pseudo country code TLD with a political identity and 27 constituent countries and 23 official languages. One of the biggest mistakes made by non-EU, especially US and Canadian, domainers during the .eu Sunrise and Landrush was in thinking that .eu was just a primarily English language .com clone. It is not.
There are very few proposed new gTLDs with the kind of ready-made market that .eu ccTLD theoretically had when it was launched. Domainers are only a small part of the ecology of any healthy TLD. The real value in a TLD comes from development and usage.
“it is a pseudo country code TLD ”
Yes – and that is what the Pseudo government told them – and the pseudo government is correct – because .eu is a pseudo government leading those who have been programmed that mediocrity is an unachievable dream – this goes much deeper than a TLD where onlky the registry is making money from it 🙂