World's Top Domain Name Consumer Grows

Internet users in Germany stand at about 35 million and registered .de domains

Here's a quick quiz for domain name savvy folks out there who believe that they are fairly well informed. Who is the world's top consumer of domain names outside the United States?

If your answer is Germany, then you are absolutely correct. In a way this is hardly surprising because this is the country already known in Europe as the one having the  largest number of Internet users by far. Add the fact that rules for domain name registration in Germany are fairly simple and lenient and most of all cheap and you will begin to understand where this interesting phenomenon is coming from.

Internet users in Germany stand at about 35 million and registered .de domains (the most popular in Germany by far) are at 6.5 million. And it all began with the launch of .de domain names by the University of Dortmund in 1991. Then in 1996, German Internet Service Providers established the DENIC co-operative which stepped in to become the main source of .de domain names registry.

Interestingly .de domain names have completely dominated the market and not even .com seems to do well in Germany. In fact, .info strangely enough, has performed much better in Germany.

All indications are that if current trends continue, then the total number of registered domain names in Germany is set to double from the current figure in just a handful of years to come.

As a matter of interest for comparison purposes, The United Kingdom now has around 5 million registered domain names which places them fourth worldwide.

The good news for everybody is that the high figures in domain name registration worldwide is a sure sign that the industry is more than ready to move to the next exciting level of development.