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Aussie ccTLD surges under coronavirus lockdown

Kevin Murphy, May 18, 2020, 10:48:22 (UTC), Domain Registries

Australia’s .au ccTLD may have been in decline recently, but it saw a surge in new domain registrations during its coronavirus lockdown, according to registry stats.

auDA said that 48,754 new .au domains were registered in April, a more than 23% increase on its April 2019 number.

The registry called this leap “the biggest month for new domain name creations we’ve seen in a while”. It averages about 40,000 per month, with seasonality.

The overall number of extant registrations was down a bit to 3,168,883, but auDA chalks this up to the expiration of domains registered during registrar promotions a year ago.

Australia was under its lockdown, which was less severe than in other countries, for the whole month of April. The measures were put in place March 21 and relaxed last week.

Numbers for March show a year-over-year decline of 1.4% in new adds.

While auDA does not attribute its April growth to lockdown, I think the numbers show that the movement restrictions imposed certainly didn’t hurt .au’s business.

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Comments (3)

  1. Kyle-K says:

    Makes you wonder how much this was helped along by the promotional giveaway done by one of the largest registrars in Australia.

    VentraIP announced their intentions to give away 10,000 .au domain names on April 20 2020 on their blog and OzBargain. To any new customer’s that wanted one and could meet the eligibility requirements.

  2. Voice Acting says:

    If you are sitting around all day at home, “Hey, I want to start a business! Let me buy a domain name.”

  3. Hopefully the start of something good. With the rise of AI surely we need a more independent workforce focused on creativity. That starts with branding yourself properly online. Though I still lean towards .COM

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