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The Domain Name Registrar Market in 2022: New Trends and Strategies

09 Jan, 2023 | Articles

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The global domain name registrar market size has shown rapid growth with the increase in the number of websites over the past 10 years. According to analysts at Straits Research, the domain name registrar market is expected to reach ~USD 1025 million by 2027, growing at a CAGR of ~4.7%. The increase in the span of global websites has given rise to a number of different domain name registrars, each bringing a cut above the rest. While China holds the largest number of domains in the world, North America is playing a leading role in the region with a notable number of domain name registrars that are expected to reach a market size of ~USD 328 million, growing at a CAGR of ~5%.

TLD saturation varies across different countries. Africa gained more traffic in domain name registrations with a growth rate of 11% up from 6% in 2019. Europe lost 0.5% of its growth, primarily due to the ".uk" domain. On the other hand, North America gained a 1.7% increase in 2020 while losing 5% in 2019, primarily due to ".ca" (Canada).

The most recent trends in the domain name registrar market:

Let’s get an overview of the latest trends in TLDs and domain ownership in the registrar industry.

The year's top TLDs and how registrars are making the most of them

There are approximately 26.3 million generic TLD (gTLD) domains in the world. Taking into account the customer's trust in various TLDs, registrars have adapted to changing trends and capitalised on the opportunity by offering different price ranges for these TLDs. The price range of .com TLDs is therefore high as compared to other TLDs. Registrars keep the renewal prices in a range higher enough to get the maximum profit, and so, ".com" plays the leading role and is focused more on grabbing the customers. The domains are held in a secure database under the control of the in-house expert alongside trademark information.

Customers leased 3,084,688 ".com" domain names in 2020, which constitutes 48% of all the TLD’s taken together, while the ratio of registered ".com" domain names was 1,928,145, (37%) in 2019. Statistics show that as of April 2021, 52.3 percent of global websites used the ".com" top-level domain, followed by the ".ru" TLD, which was ranked second with a 5.9 percent market share, while the top new emerging and trusted generic TLD is ".xyz"..gdn is disliked the most due to its flaws like unnecessary keyword pausing, restriction to image ads only, and not testing ads.

Strategies to start and grow a domain name registrar business.

The domain name registrar market is deemed to have tough competition for new entrants as the biggest registrars are already competing with each other to provide better services. The below-mentioned points will help new registrars take their first step into the market.

ICANN accreditation and authentication

ICANN registration is the basic part of starting a registrar company for .com, .net .name, and other top-level domains (TLDs). The accreditation process is available at the ICANN accreditation process.

On the other hand, if a registrar wants to add other TLDs to your account, the process will be a lot easier for you. Follow the instructions, e.g financial information, and fill out the form with other necessary requirements on the ICANN official website.

For the authentication process, ICANN notifies the registry operators when the accreditation process is completed for any TLDs. For the authentication process, a Verisign dealer contacts you for further documentation to prove your business site.

Get Authorization and develop a good connection with Verisign

After authentication, ask Verisign for more help. Go to the Add Services tab and check the latest perks and services provided by VeriSign to the registrars, and then contact the Customer Affairs Office to send your supporting documents. Verisign is a provider of domain name registry services globally with revenues of about $1 billion/year. It provides the major internet infrastructure and supplies security, reliability, and stability to the infrastructure. Verisign hosts global registrars which are its customers. So, whenever a customer buys any domain with .com or .net or any other extensions, VeriSign earns a profit. Verisign has a significant presence in the provision of domain names for.com extensions and has demonstrated its operational accuracy and stability for the.com DNS by maintaining 100% functional fidelity. Complete the whole step-by-step process as devised by Verisign and reserve your spot as a registrar.

Domain business knowledge and choosing the target market.

Prior to choosing the TLDs for your account, registrars need to have a view of what kind of market they are going to target, which regions will buy the domains, who will be your customers, what will be their demands, what would be their price range, which services will prove to be beneficial for them. After deciding these things, it is necessary to choose the domains wisely and lastly, it is good to get business liability insurance for your registrar company.

Market Trends in 2021

Strategies used by the largest registrars to help them distinguish themselves

Some of the strategies made by the renowned registrars have helped them grow, potentially by increasing the number of customers and uplifting the growth of the Global Domain Name Registrar Market in this decade, have proved to be helpful initially to these registrars. We will share those strategies so that the new registrar markets may avail themselves of the opportunity.

GoDaddy has shown exceptional growth when compared to other domain name registrars over the past few years as it started providing low-cost hosting at the right time and provides low-priced domains for new entrants on their website. The solid cause of its exceptional growth is because it provides the fastest, most reliable hosting that makes it distinct from others. GoDaddy’s Website Builder offers a number of professionally designed, ready-to-launch templates with add-ons and one-click installs.

They give these services to new customers to join the platform when they are attracted to the low rates, but the renewal rates are higher as GoDaddy gets its money back when renewing a new website domain. Godaddy charges money for providing security with a 99.9% uptime guarantee and business emails to the domains, claiming their network security is unbeatable. They have managed to gain popularity with their SuperBowl ads.

They spend a small amount of money on advertising and have spent time finding affiliates in every corner of the internet. On the contrary, Bluehost is one of the biggest registrars in the market that offers website hosting and free domains with a single purchase, except that BlueHost does not provide free domains for VPS, dedicated, or managed WordPress.

They provide services such as a proprietary website builder, free traffic-generating tools, improved security, one-click installation of WordPress and WordPress updates, auto-renewals, an intuitive domain management dashboard, 24/7 expert support, a free SSL certificate, and much more. Hosting starts at $2.95/month for a span of three years and offers a free domain name if you want to purchase it for one year, but the cost will rise to $4.95/month with a renewal cost between $15.99 and $18.99 per year for highly demanded extensions like .com, .net, .biz, and .org.

The low starting prices of Bluehost give the edge to start-ups and small businesses to purchase a domain at low rates and grow their businesses. Namecheap, on the other hand, sells domains for $5 to $6 per year and starts at $0.99 for the first year. Its search tool has the ability to search up to 5,000 keywords at once and offers.com domain names for less than $10 per year. It provides domains with 24/7 live chat support, full DNS access, free privacy protection, an extensive knowledge base, a free PositiveSSL certificate for one year, domain name security. Bluehost charges $9 or less for the renewal of most of the TLDs.

These tactics can be adopted by new entrants to increase the market value of their domain name registrars.

How Covid-19 affected the growth of the registrar market

The global pandemic hit major industries worldwide, including the domain name registrar market, which is one of them. According to the MCA database, the number of new companies that registered a domain name hit a low of 3,209 in April 2020, falling prey to strict restrictions by governments and lockdowns on account of the global pandemic. The registrar market then gained a rapid pace with various phases of unlocking to cross 16,000 registrations in July 2020, possibly due to backlogs, and remained above the level till October 2020. At the end of 2021, the total country-code TLD (ccTLD) domain name registrations were 156.5 million. With a decrease of 2.4 million domain name registrations, it decreased to 1.5%.

However, domain registrations related to the pandemic have been raised above the level of 100,000 since January 1, 2020. Governments and NGOs have leveraged pre-existing web properties such as the U.S. and European CDC sites and who.int, although some activity has been observed across third-level country code top-level domains (ccTLDs), with usages mixed between redirects (e.g. covid19.gov.au) and dedicated sites (e.g. coronavirus.gov.hk).

List of the world's largest domain name registrars

Some of the leading enterprise-level accredited domain name registrars are as under.

GoDaddy is the world’s biggest and oldest domain registrar, founded in 1994 as Jomax Technologies, with more than 20 million customers, 76.2 million domains, and 7,000 employees worldwide.
Namecheap, based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Richard Kirkendall in the year 2000, secures the second position with 11 million domains and 12.6 million registered domain names, and is considered to be budget friendly.
Tucows Domains is a wholesale provider with 11.9 million registered domain names. It does not provide domain names to customers directly, and involves affiliate domain providers like Hover.
Network Solutions was founded in Virginia in 1979 by Emmit J. McHenry and is one of the biggest hubs for domain names, with 7.5 million domains and 430 registered TLDs.
Alibaba Cloud Computing Beijing, founded in 2009, is a home for secure web hosting and cloud computing, along with artificial intelligence services for 7.3 million registered domains.
NameSilo proves to be a wide-ranging domain registrar. It provides free WHOIS privacy while other domain registrars charge for security. People can save $10–15 per year per site with dozens or hundreds of sites.
Google Domains' eminence is in providing a comprehensive selection of tools for DNS management. It allows the user to enable DNSSEC (Domain Name System Security Extensions) with a single click, which can protect websites from spoofing and other attacks.

These are the Best Domain Registrar top manufacturers that should be considered in 2021.

Factors that trigger the rapid growth of the registrar market

Straits Research report says that the revenue growth for the Web Domain Name Sales industry has increased to 6.2% in 2020. E-commerce websites have taken the world by storm for the past 5 years. The increase in the number of websites creates room for new website domains.

Better website building themes, improved security, business emails, one-click installations, WordPress updates, auto-renewals, free privacy protection, intuitive domain management dashboard, 24/7 expert support, free SSL certificates, extensive knowledge base, VPS, dedicated or managed WordPress are the basic necessities of every new website out there entering the market. New market registrars should try to play best on these fronts in order to trigger their growth in the registrar world.

The latest privacy and security demands and how to gain excellence in them

The monthly registrations of companies with domain names reached 17,324 in March 2021 and continued at 10,915 companies in May 2021. Industrial law and compliance experts give credit to the introduction of GST, the e-Way billing system, and overall digitization of the economy, which have made it possible for small businesses and new entrants to grow digitally. GST has become the basic requirement of the new registrars.

The Digital Services Act package was published on Tuesday, 15 December 2020. The DSA includes all the rules and regulations for online services. DSA covers the guidelines for intermediary services offering network infrastructure like DNS service providers, Internet access providers, and different hosting services such as cloud and web hosting services. DNS providers come under the scope of DSA. The law forces strict limitations on the spread of illegal content and goods over the internet.

The US NIS proposed a revised Directive on Security of Network and Information Systems (NIS2 Directive), which is an update to the EU's existing NIS Directive and imposes new requirements on service providers for the prevention of cyber-attacks, the implementation of security policies, the scrutiny of supplier security, and the use of encryption technology.

More About the Market:

Straits Research has an annual publication on the Global Domain Name Registrar Market which provides in-depth analysis of the Market both in qualitative and quantitative terms. Various opportunities for existing and new players are mentioned in the report. You may proceed to enquire about this market report below.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)

Husain Imran

Husain is a Director in Straits Research. He has been helping Enterprise Tech companies with GTM strategies and audience building for more than a decade. Being an active leader in the domain registry and web hosting space, he leverages his wide reach and network in helping companies to navigate through digital challenges and mitigate cyber risks through consulting.

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A domain name registrar is a business that controls and manages the reservation of domain names, authorizes customers to purchase and lease domain names for a specific amount of time, assigns alphanumeric identifiers-the IP addresses for those domains, and allows customers to renew, transfer, or close domain name registration. The global domain name registrar market size has shown rapid growth with the increase in the number of websites over the past 10 years. According to analysts at Straits Research, the domain name registrar market is expected to reach ~USD 1025 million by 2027, growing at a CAGR of ~4.7%. The increase in the span of global websites has given rise to a number of different domain name registrars, each bringing a cut above the rest. While China holds the largest number of domains in the world, North America is playing a leading role in the region with a notable number of domain name registrars that are expected to reach a market size of ~USD 328 million, growing at a CAGR of ~5%. TLD saturation varies across different countries. Africa gained more traffic in domain name registrations with a growth rate of 11% up from 6% in 2019. Europe lost 0.5% of its growth, primarily due to the ".uk" domain. On the other hand, North America gained a 1.7% increase in 2020 while losing 5% in 2019, primarily due to ".ca" (Canada). The most recent trends in the domain name registrar market: Let’s get an overview of the latest trends in TLDs and domain ownership in the registrar industry. The year's top TLDs and how registrars are making the most of them There are approximately 26.3 million generic TLD (gTLD) domains in the world. Taking into account the customer's trust in various TLDs, registrars have adapted to changing trends and capitalised on the opportunity by offering different price ranges for these TLDs. The price range of .com TLDs is therefore high as compared to other TLDs. Registrars keep the renewal prices in a range higher enough to get the maximum profit, and so, ".com" plays the leading role and is focused more on grabbing the customers. The domains are held in a secure database under the control of the in-house expert alongside trademark information. Customers leased 3,084,688 ".com" domain names in 2020, which constitutes 48% of all the TLD’s taken together, while the ratio of registered ".com" domain names was 1,928,145, (37%) in 2019. Statistics show that as of April 2021, 52.3 percent of global websites used the ".com" top-level domain, followed by the ".ru" TLD, which was ranked second with a 5.9 percent market share, while the top new emerging and trusted generic TLD is ".xyz"..gdn is disliked the most due to its flaws like unnecessary keyword pausing, restriction to image ads only, and not testing ads. Strategies to start and grow a domain name registrar business. The domain name registrar market is deemed to have tough competition for new entrants as the biggest registrars are already competing with each other to provide better services. The below-mentioned points will help new registrars take their first step into the market. ICANN accreditation and authentication ICANN registration is the basic part of starting a registrar company for .com, .net .name, and other top-level domains (TLDs). The accreditation process is available at the ICANN accreditation process. On the other hand, if a registrar wants to add other TLDs to your account, the process will be a lot easier for you. Follow the instructions, e.g financial information, and fill out the form with other necessary requirements on the ICANN official website. For the authentication process, ICANN notifies the registry operators when the accreditation process is completed for any TLDs. For the authentication process, a Verisign dealer contacts you for further documentation to prove your business site. Get Authorization and develop a good connection with Verisign After authentication, ask Verisign for more help. Go to the Add Services tab and check the latest perks and services provided by VeriSign to the registrars, and then contact the Customer Affairs Office to send your supporting documents. Verisign is a provider of domain name registry services globally with revenues of about $1 billion/year. It provides the major internet infrastructure and supplies security, reliability, and stability to the infrastructure. Verisign hosts global registrars which are its customers. So, whenever a customer buys any domain with .com or .net or any other extensions, VeriSign earns a profit. Verisign has a significant presence in the provision of domain names for.com extensions and has demonstrated its operational accuracy and stability for the.com DNS by maintaining 100% functional fidelity. Complete the whole step-by-step process as devised by Verisign and reserve your spot as a registrar. Domain business knowledge and choosing the target market. Prior to choosing the TLDs for your account, registrars need to have a view of what kind of market they are going to target, which regions will buy the domains, who will be your customers, what will be their demands, what would be their price range, which services will prove to be beneficial for them. After deciding these things, it is necessary to choose the domains wisely and lastly, it is good to get business liability insurance for your registrar company. Market Trends in 2021 Strategies used by the largest registrars to help them distinguish themselves Some of the strategies made by the renowned registrars have helped them grow, potentially by increasing the number of customers and uplifting the growth of the Global Domain Name Registrar Market in this decade, have proved to be helpful initially to these registrars. We will share those strategies so that the new registrar markets may avail themselves of the opportunity. GoDaddy has shown exceptional growth when compared to other domain name registrars over the past few years as it started providing low-cost hosting at the right time and provides low-priced domains for new entrants on their website. The solid cause of its exceptional growth is because it provides the fastest, most reliable hosting that makes it distinct from others. GoDaddy’s Website Builder offers a number of professionally designed, ready-to-launch templates with add-ons and one-click installs. They give these services to new customers to join the platform when they are attracted to the low rates, but the renewal rates are higher as GoDaddy gets its money back when renewing a new website domain. Godaddy charges money for providing security with a 99.9% uptime guarantee and business emails to the domains, claiming their network security is unbeatable. They have managed to gain popularity with their SuperBowl ads. They spend a small amount of money on advertising and have spent time finding affiliates in every corner of the internet. On the contrary, Bluehost is one of the biggest registrars in the market that offers website hosting and free domains with a single purchase, except that BlueHost does not provide free domains for VPS, dedicated, or managed WordPress. They provide services such as a proprietary website builder, free traffic-generating tools, improved security, one-click installation of WordPress and WordPress updates, auto-renewals, an intuitive domain management dashboard, 24/7 expert support, a free SSL certificate, and much more. Hosting starts at $2.95/month for a span of three years and offers a free domain name if you want to purchase it for one year, but the cost will rise to $4.95/month with a renewal cost between $15.99 and $18.99 per year for highly demanded extensions like .com, .net, .biz, and .org. The low starting prices of Bluehost give the edge to start-ups and small businesses to purchase a domain at low rates and grow their businesses. Namecheap, on the other hand, sells domains for $5 to $6 per year and starts at $0.99 for the first year. Its search tool has the ability to search up to 5,000 keywords at once and offers.com domain names for less than $10 per year. It provides domains with 24/7 live chat support, full DNS access, free privacy protection, an extensive knowledge base, a free PositiveSSL certificate for one year, domain name security. Bluehost charges $9 or less for the renewal of most of the TLDs. These tactics can be adopted by new entrants to increase the market value of their domain name registrars. How Covid-19 affected the growth of the registrar market The global pandemic hit major industries worldwide, including the domain name registrar market, which is one of them. According to the MCA database, the number of new companies that registered a domain name hit a low of 3,209 in April 2020, falling prey to strict restrictions by governments and lockdowns on account of the global pandemic. The registrar market then gained a rapid pace with various phases of unlocking to cross 16,000 registrations in July 2020, possibly due to backlogs, and remained above the level till October 2020. At the end of 2021, the total country-code TLD (ccTLD) domain name registrations were 156.5 million. With a decrease of 2.4 million domain name registrations, it decreased to 1.5%. However, domain registrations related to the pandemic have been raised above the level of 100,000 since January 1, 2020. Governments and NGOs have leveraged pre-existing web properties such as the U.S. and European CDC sites and who.int, although some activity has been observed across third-level country code top-level domains (ccTLDs), with usages mixed between redirects (e.g. covid19.gov.au) and dedicated sites (e.g. coronavirus.gov.hk). List of the world's largest domain name registrars Some of the leading enterprise-level accredited domain name registrars are as under. GoDaddy is the world’s biggest and oldest domain registrar, founded in 1994 as Jomax Technologies, with more than 20 million customers, 76.2 million domains, and 7,000 employees worldwide. Namecheap, based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Richard Kirkendall in the year 2000, secures the second position with 11 million domains and 12.6 million registered domain names, and is considered to be budget friendly. Tucows Domains is a wholesale provider with 11.9 million registered domain names. It does not provide domain names to customers directly, and involves affiliate domain providers like Hover. Network Solutions was founded in Virginia in 1979 by Emmit J. McHenry and is one of the biggest hubs for domain names, with 7.5 million domains and 430 registered TLDs. Alibaba Cloud Computing Beijing, founded in 2009, is a home for secure web hosting and cloud computing, along with artificial intelligence services for 7.3 million registered domains. NameSilo proves to be a wide-ranging domain registrar. It provides free WHOIS privacy while other domain registrars charge for security. People can save $10–15 per year per site with dozens or hundreds of sites. Google Domains' eminence is in providing a comprehensive selection of tools for DNS management. It allows the user to enable DNSSEC (Domain Name System Security Extensions) with a single click, which can protect websites from spoofing and other attacks. These are the Best Domain Registrar top manufacturers that should be considered in 2021. Factors that trigger the rapid growth of the registrar market Straits Research report says that the revenue growth for the Web Domain Name Sales industry has increased to 6.2% in 2020. E-commerce websites have taken the world by storm for the past 5 years. The increase in the number of websites creates room for new website domains. Better website building themes, improved security, business emails, one-click installations, WordPress updates, auto-renewals, free privacy protection, intuitive domain management dashboard, 24/7 expert support, free SSL certificates, extensive knowledge base, VPS, dedicated or managed WordPress are the basic necessities of every new website out there entering the market. New market registrars should try to play best on these fronts in order to trigger their growth in the registrar world. The latest privacy and security demands and how to gain excellence in them The monthly registrations of companies with domain names reached 17,324 in March 2021 and continued at 10,915 companies in May 2021. Industrial law and compliance experts give credit to the introduction of GST, the e-Way billing system, and overall digitization of the economy, which have made it possible for small businesses and new entrants to grow digitally. GST has become the basic requirement of the new registrars. The Digital Services Act package was published on Tuesday, 15 December 2020. The DSA includes all the rules and regulations for online services. DSA covers the guidelines for intermediary services offering network infrastructure like DNS service providers, Internet access providers, and different hosting services such as cloud and web hosting services. DNS providers come under the scope of DSA. The law forces strict limitations on the spread of illegal content and goods over the internet. The US NIS proposed a revised Directive on Security of Network and Information Systems (NIS2 Directive), which is an update to the EU's existing NIS Directive and imposes new requirements on service providers for the prevention of cyber-attacks, the implementation of security policies, the scrutiny of supplier security, and the use of encryption technology. More About the Market: Straits Research has an annual publication on the Global Domain Name Registrar Market which provides in-depth analysis of the Market both in qualitative and quantitative terms. Various opportunities for existing and new players are mentioned in the report. You may proceed to enquire about this market report below.