Africa’s top-level domain name system address space consists of 54 top-level country code top-level domains, with the market having a total annual value of USD 52 million, ITWeb reported, citing a study from ICANN on the Africa domain name system (DNS) market, presented during its 59th public meeting in Johannesburg.
According to ICANN, the African continent top-level DNS address space consists of 54 top-level country code top-level domains (ccTLDs) of which one, Southern Sudan, is not yet delegated, plus five internationalised domain names (IDNs) – Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Sudan and Morocco –as well as three city codes (.Capetown, .Durban and .Joburg).
ICANN recently delegated the .Africa domain to South African administrator, the ZA Central Registry (ZACR), and registrations will be fully open in July. Data from May indicates a total of just over 3.5 million domains are active under the African ccTLDs.
There are about 1.4 million registrations in the generic top-level domains (gTLDs) by African entities. Around 1 percent of gTLD domains are registered by Africans. Over the last six months (November 2016 to May 2017), African ccTLD domains have increased by 21 percent.
The research indicates high access costs, the lack of infrastructure and the fact that African Internet access is primarily via mobile devices result in lower demand for domain names than elsewhere. This was confirmed by responses to the survey, with respondents citing high prices as the biggest barrier to the development of the DNS market in most African countries followed by lack of infrastructure.
Credit: TelecomPaper
