The total number of .ie domain names grew by just over five percent in 2012, Ireland’s registry IEDR reported. 

Registrations per capita for the Irish republic are quite low compared to other developed countries with the total number of .ie domains being 182,284, a growth rate of 5.3 percent. The growth rate would be quite impressive for most industries, but in the domain name world, not so impressive.

Undoubtedly the growth is hampered somewhat by restrictive registration policies, but this hasn’t hampered .au (Australia). In the year ending June 2012, registrations of .au domains increased by 9.53 percent to 2,673,939. Undoubtedly Australia’s economy has performed better than Ireland’s, but this isn’t the only reason for the disparities.

The registry in making the announcement was much happier promoting what it considered a solid core trading performance for 2012 where there was a total volume growth of 19.3 percent in new .ie domain registrations while Members’ Funds increased to €3.6 million. The registry anticipates it will enable them to further consolidate the safety, stability and resilience of the ccTLD.

However IEDR remains bullish saying that while new registration growth in the first quarter of 2013 is down by 6.4 percent compared to the same period in 2012, they are still optimistic of future growth. The drop, IEDR says, reflects a Europe-wide slowdown and ongoing difficult trading conditions in the Irish economy, in particular for the SME community. Nevertheless, the Irish internet ecosystem continues to evolve and the company’s current trading performance is positive, as costs remain under control.

IEDR also note they continue to be ready to implement technologies and products such as internationalised domain names (IDN) and secure DNS (DNSSEC) when there are sufficient indicators of market interest. On the international front; IEDR continues to monitor ICANN’s decision to significantly expand the DNS by adding potentially one thousand new generic top level domains (gTLDs) within twelve months. IEDR has continued its support to the Irish Internet community by extending the OPTIMISE Fund to a value of €150,000 in 2013.