IE Domain Registry Annual Report 2019

IE Domain Registry  Annual Report & Review  2019 Business and Market Review .ie accredited Registrar community An accredited Registrar is a company authorised to act as an agent on behalf of registrants (customers) who need .ie websites and/or .ie email addresses. They are usually hosting providers who operate across a number of different business sectors, offering a wide range of services to their target markets. Most accredited Registrars will offer .ie domains as part of a bundle of services (hosting, email, storage, website builder, security products etc.) usually for an ongoing monthly fee. Links to many of our accredited Registrars’ websites can be found on our website at www.iedr.ie/accredited-registrar-list . At the end of 2019, the channel comprised of 128 accredited Registrars, who managed 99.2% of all domain names registered in the database (Chart 4). The top 5 accredited Registrars (those with a portfolio of more than 10,000 domains) and the top 37 (those with more than 500 domains) account for 74% and 94% respectively of the entire .ie database. Direct registrants (those customers who do not register via an accredited Registrar) account for just 0.8% of the database. Chart 4: Accredited Registrars – concentration of channel market share December 2019 Growth initiatives The Company does not actively promote .ie directly to the end consumer. Instead, the company operates a Co-Funded Marketing Programme (CFMP) for our .ie accredited Registrar channel. The purpose of the programme is to promote awareness, stimulate registration growth and encourage renewals of .ie domain names. The CFMP, in partnership with our Registrars, supports one of the Company’s key objectives of raising SMEs’ awareness about the importance of having an identifiably Irish online presence. We continued to offer the CFMP throughout 2019. The programme supported a wide range of Registrar marketing initiatives including radio commercials, TV advertising, printed advertisements, social media advertising and industry events. This resulted in increased sales growth, promotion of .ie domain activation, with an email address or a website and also resulted in up-selling products such as website builders and security products. Registrars who participated in the 2019 programme reported positive results with increased traffic to their websites and an increase in their .ie registrations. International review There are more than 240 country code top-level domain extensions (ccTLDs) worldwide, including .ie. Compared to twenty three other European countries, Ireland ranks 18th, with 58 country code domains per 1,000 of population. Using this metric, Ireland ranks ahead of, or is comparable to, European countries with larger populations, including France (51 .fr domains per 1,000), Spain (41 .es domains per 1,000), Russia (34 .ru domains per 1,000). However, Ireland also ranks behind several European countries with smaller or similar populations, including Denmark (227 .dk domains) and Norway (147 .no domains). Our nearest neighbours in the UK have 196 .uk domains per 1,000 of population. Commentators attribute this to Ireland’s slow start in building out early internet infrastructure, compared to European neighbours, which had many competing internet service providers and cable operators. European Leaders Country County code Domains per 1,000 population Netherlands .nl 342 Switzerland .ch 265 Denmark .dk 227 Germany .de 197 United Kingdom .uk 196 Source: CENTR (registrations)/WorldBank (population) Top 5 Registrars 74% Next 32 Registrars 20% Next 91 Registrars 5.2% Direct Registrants 0.8% 36