.EU Registrations Continue To Drop Due To Brexit Fears

The number of .eu and .ею domain name registrations have
continued to fall as the likelihood of Brexit draws nearer as most UK
registrants will lose their eligibility. In the year to the end of March the
number of .eu and .ею domain names registered to UK registrants declined 134,661
while total registrations dropped 162,390.

At the end of the first quarter of 2019, there were 3,661,899 .eu and .ею domain names registered according to EURid’s Quarterly Report [pdf] for the first quarter of 2019, down from 3,824,289 at the end of the first quarter 2018 and 3,755,475 at the end of the first quarter 2017. During this period the number of .eu and .ею domain names registered to UK registrants was 188,505 at the end of the first quarter of 2019, 323,166 (end Q1, 2018) and 308,667 (end Q1, 2017).

But there are still .eu domain names being registered with 175,794
new .eu registrations in Q1 2019. Ireland, Sweden and Portugal were the top
countries in terms of registration percentage growth throughout the quarter,
all with growth over 10%. For the year to the end of March, the top growth
countries were Norway (36.5% registration growth), Cyprus (36.2%), Romania
(31.9%) and Ireland (27.5%).

Overall the top countries by registrations were Germany
(984,311 registrations), Netherlands (475,514), France (328,863), Poland
(265,807) and Italy (265,060). And despite the huge drop in registration
numbers, the United Kingdom is the sixth largest country of registrations with
188,505.

There were also a number of important developments for EURid
including the introduction of the 2019 Reduction scheme, the CFM programme was
audited and launched for 2019-2022 and the new .eu Regulation entered into
force. EURid also continued their support of the Uganda Borehole project and the
co-funded Marketing Programme for .eu accredited registrars was continued until
2022 following an in-depth assessment by an external party and the introduction
of several procedural refinements.

There were also 36,804 internationalised .eu domain names
and another 1,932 .ею, all in Cyrillic as per .eu rules. And the renewal rate
for the quarter was 78.2%, up 1% since the fourth quarter of 2018.

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