.eu domain registrations, up in Q1 2014

Cristina Blanaru All News

The total number of .eu registrations grew by 2.2% in Q1 2014, according to the progress report released by the .eu registry EURid.

This relatively high growth rate is thanks, in part, to our high renewal rate of above 80% and the higher than expected level of new registrations (…) The latter is especially comforting as it shows that the popularity of.eu is further growing in a crowded market place, even as the many new gTLDs jostle for position.

Marc Van Wesemael

General Manager EURid

During the first 3 months of the year, the .eu registrations increased in 27 of the 28 EU member states, with Croatia and Portugal both seeing a growth of over 10%.

The report was released shortly after the European Commission officially re-confirmed EURid as the registry manager for the .eu top-level domain for the next five years.

eu domains

According to the report, most .eu domain names are in Germany (over 1M), followed by Netherlands (507,000), France (351,000), UK (346,000), Poland (239,000) and Italy (217,000). The fewest .eu domain names were registered from French Guyana and Iceland (under 100).

EURid is an non-for-profit organisation that manages and operates .eu since 2003 upon appointment by the European Commission, following a tender process. EURid was founded by DNS Belgium, Istituto di Informatica e Telematica and Stiftelsen för Internetinfrastruktur (IIS), respectively the registries for Belgium (.be), Italy (.it) and Sweden (.se). Other members include: the Academic and Research Network of Slovenia (the registry for .si), CZ.NIC (the registry for .cz), the European Chapter of the Internet Society (ISOC-ECC), Business Europe, the Confederation of Computer User Associations (CECUA), the European Communities Trade Mark Association (ECTA), the European Multi-Channel Online Trade Association (EMOTA), the Interactive Advertising Bureau Europe (IAB Europe) and the European Association of Craft, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (UEAPME).

.eu domain names became publically available for live registrations to businesses, organisations and individuals resident in the European Union on 7 April 2006.