CAICT note on the Chinese domain industry

This note shows what domains are big in China.

The China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) recently released a research note (Chinese language only) on the Chinese domain industry. I just finished reading it and found some bits and pieces that may help you understand the domain market in China.

Published in July this year, the note is called “Internet Domain Name Industry Note (互联网域名产业报告)”. A sizable part of the note covers general discussions such as DNS and ICANN, but it also contains some data relevant to domain investment.

There are now 43 million domains registered in China. The largest extension is .cn with 20 million domains (47% of total), followed by .com with 12 million domains (29%). The top 10 are .cn, .com, .中国 (IDN China), .icu, .top, .wang, .net, .xyz, .vip, and .club.

You may think Chinese IDN domains must be very popular in China since of its 1.4 billion Chinese-speaking population. Unfortunately, the answer is no. Domains in Chinese IDN extensions account for only regarding 6% of all domains registered in China. This is since there are still many issues to be tackled, such as user awareness and support by applications.

How does China compare with other countries? The United States has the largest number of domains registered, followed by China, Germany, Tokelau, and Canada. When we look at domains in country extensions only, if the free .tk (Tokelau) domains are excluded, then .cn is the largest country extension in the world.

Finally, the United States has the largest number of domain registrars in the world, followed by Japan, Germany, UK, France, and then China.