.au domains on the up-and-up

Stephen Withers
Wednesday, 18 January 2012 12:05

IT Industry - Development

The number of domains registered in the .au space continues to rise exponentially, according to a new report.

The exponential growth in the number of .au domain names since 2002 is continuing, according to a report prepared by Deloitte Access Economics for .au Domain Administration and AusRegistry.

As at August 2011, 2.18 million .au domain names were registered, more than 600% up on the December 2002 figure. More than 85% of the names are in the .com.au space, and .com.au, .net.au and .org au account for more than 99% of registrations.

Not surprisingly, the geographical distribution of registrants is similar to that of Australia's population, but with over-representation in the major cities. Interestingly, businesses in very remote areas are slightly more likely to have registered a domain name than those in major cities.

The report's authors suggest this may indicate that businesses in remote areas are more reliant on communications technology, or just reflect the relatively low rate of registered businesses in those areas.

Nor should it be a surprise that the majority (53%) of domain names are registered by companies. Sole traders account for 14% of registrations, registered businesses 11%, and partnerships 2%.

Take out 1% each for non-profit organisations and incorporated associations, and that still leaves 18% classified as 'other'. Most of that can presumably be associated with government (.gov.au), education (.edu.au) and the CSIRO (.csiro.au) - the report gives no indication of the number of registrations by individuals other than sole traders.