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New gTLD launches: registrar coverage at less than 40% of the market

Kevin Murphy, January 7, 2014, 19:29:13 (UTC), Domain Registrars

Registrars representing less than 40% of the gTLD market are ready to offer new gTLDs during their launch phases, according to the latest stats from ICANN.
ICANN released yesterday a list (pdf) of the just 21 registrars that have signed the 2013 Registrar Accreditation Agreement and have been certified by IBM to use the Trademark Clearinghouse database.
Signing the 2013 RAA is a requirement for registrars that want to sell new gTLDs. Almost 150 registrars are currently on the new contract.
But being certified for the TMCH is also a requirement to sell names during the first 90 days of each new gTLD’s general availability, when the Trademark Claims service is running.
Together, the 21 registrars that have done both accounted for 59 million registered gTLD domain names (using August’s official numbers), which translated to 39.5% of the gTLD market.
It’s a high percentage due to the presence of Go Daddy, with its 48.2 million gTLD names. The only other top-10 registrar on the list is 1&1.
Twelve of the 21 registrars on the list had fewer than 40,000 names under management. A couple have fewer than 100.
Only one new gTLD, dotShabaka Registry’s شبكة., is currently in its Trademark Claims period.
The second batch, comprising Donuts’ first seven launches, isn’t due to hit until January 27, giving just a few weeks for the certified list to swell.
There’ll be 33 new gTLD in Claims by the end of February.
The rate at which new registrars are being certified by IBM is not especially encouraging either. Only four have been added in the last month.
Some registrars may of course choose to work via other registrars, as a reseller, rather than getting certified and doing the TMCH integration work themselves.

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Comments (4)

  1. Rubens Kuhl says:

    Being TMDB-certified is only a requirement for registering names that have been registered with TMCH. Some registry back-ends might enforce it the hard way by not allowing registrations whatsoever, but this would exceed requirements.

    • Kevin Murphy says:

      In that scenario, a customer would attempt to register a name and instead of getting a Claims notice they’d just be blocked from registering the name, right?
      A TMCH listing would be in effect a domain-blocking tool, at least for customers of non-participating registrars?

      • Rubens Kuhl says:

        Yes, for names in the TMCH list. What is undefined is whether a domain availability check from a non-TMDB-certified registrar should return available or not. There are good reasons to go either way.

  2. Thomas Lenz says:

    This reflects pretty well the results of the 2013 study by the German eco Association, whereas the larger part of registrars are not planning to offer new gTLDs during sunrise. And quite a few of the respondents in that study did not show a substantial interest in them at all. As has been said several times, it is going to be a tough marketing and sales challenge for the new registries to get their products rolling. The study can be downloaded here:
    http://numbers.eco.de/wp-content/blogs.dir/55/files/2013/06/20130611-RegistrarAtlas2013_eng_komprimiert.pdf

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