A first-ever study of Internet domain names in India has turned up some interesting—even unexpected—results. The study, “State of the Domain Name Industry in India”, carried out by leading management consulting firm, Zinnov, shows that the domain name business has grown in India, faster than the global rate—an annual growth since 2013, of 11.9 percent compared to 8.7 percent worldwide.
But when it comes to penetration—that is number of domains per 100 Internet users— India is a laggard: 1.1 % compared to China's 3.6 percent and the US 43.6 percent.
As of June 2016, the domain count stood at 4.9 million in India and at 335 million globally.
Inspite of government helping create the India-specific dot in ( .in) domain, Indian enterprises prefer the dot com ( .com) name: over half (55%) of domain names registered in India are on .com domain extension. Some 79% of the Small and Medium Businesses showed preference for a .com domain.
The report reveals that 40% of the total registered domain names in India are used for creating a website; while 10-12% of them are used for professional emails. Some 3-4% of the domains are utilized for creating mobile enabled websites.
Within India Delhi and the National Capital Region, Maharashtra, and Karnataka are the top 3 states with over 38% market share in domains.
Says Pari Natarajan, CEO & Co-Founder, Zinnov:: "The rapidly growing internet user base as well as the ever increasing number of technology enabled SMBs has helped India witness significant growth in domain name adoption over the last few years. Increased awareness about various usage of domain names including websites, professional email, redirects to social media pages and trade portal etc. will further help drive the market.”
A copy of the study can be found here
Tech hint: What is a domain name?: It is the name that identifies an Internet address. It is the name that one types in to find a site, like http://www.theweek.in to reach this site. Domain names are key to doing any activity on the internet including search, navigation and transaction.