.FR – Changes on the Horizon?
AFNIC, the official registry operator of France’s .FR country-code Top-Level Domain (ccTLD), has completed their public consultation on opening the .FR domain to the rest of the European Union. Though the liberalization of .FR is not yet determined, if approved, the roll out will be for late 2011. Given this potentially great opportunity for .FR domains, HEXONET would like to take this opportunity to provide you with a quick overview of this ccTLD.
Overview:
- Current number of registered .FR domains stands at 1.8 Million
- Between 2008 and 2009, the .FR ccTLD grew at 25% (compared to other ccTLDs which averaged only 8%)
- According to AFNIC, since registrations opened to individuals in France in June 2006, and thanks to recent improvements in system automation and a reduction in registrars’ prices, .FR has become a strong TLD choice among the French. In fact, personal (non-corporate) registrants now make up a significant part of the overall growth of the .FR registry. Personal registrations now account for 50% of new .FR registrations, which was only 40% a year previously.
- Registration of .FR now accounts for:
- 33% of all combined domain names registrations in France;
- 80% of all new domain names registrations in France;
- and the renewal rate for .FR names is very high at around 80%.
- On September 14th, AFNIC kicked off deployment of DNSSEC in France by signing the .FR Top Level Domain.
- The secondary market in France is underdeveloped compared to neighboring countries. However, in January 2010 the domain - Credit.FR - sold for €587,500 euros (approx. $785,000 USD), which is a good sign the after market for .FR is growing.
We at HEXONET believes the .FR ccTLD has tremendous growth potential, especially if the public consultation leads to a more open registration policy. In the meantime, for those customers who reside outside of France and who are interested in registering .FR ccTLDs, HEXONET offers a trustee service for fast and easy registration ... more details.