CIRA Releases the 2012 .CA Factbook

CIRA, the Canadian Internet Registration Authority, has just released its 2012 .CA Factbook, a collection of facts and research about the global domain name industry and .CA's place relative to other registries. It is a comprehensive report delivered online to encourage 'social sharing' (i.e. tweetable factoids and excellent graphics). We encourage you to take some time to view this report in its entirety (here). Below are some of the highlights of this report:

• By mid-2011 there were over 214 million domains registered globally and approximately 84 million of these were ccTLDs (country-code Top Level Domains)
• Canada's .CA is the world's 14th-largest domain registry, up two spots over the past year
• .CA's share of the Canadian market has grown consistently and now accounts for approximately 29% of all domains registered in Canada
• Most ccTLDs enjoy a large domestic share advantage over gTLDs (generic Top Level Domains). This is especially true for .NL (Netherlands), .DE (Germany), .SE (Sweden), and .UK (Britain) and although overall market-penetration rates are very low, Brazils's .BR  (see chart below)
• As suspected Canadians pay far more than most for high-speed Internet access; Canada' ranking in the areas of broadband speed and price is quite far down the list. Based on OECD data, Canada is #23 on the list! Japan actually leads the pack... a country where one mbps costs less than one-tenth of what it does in Canada.