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Report six months after opening .fr domain names to individuals

Home > Observatory and resources > News > Report six months after opening .fr domain names to individuals
12/13/2006

Presse release
Saint Quentin en Yvelines, December, 13th 2006

The opening of .fr domain names to individuals took place on June 20th, 2006. Since then, every person over the age of 18 that can justify a
postal address in France can register a .fr domain name.

The AFNIC, in charge of the .fr, has published first figures six days after the opening of .fr domain names to individuals. After six months here are some new data.

Today, .fr is:
More than 120.000 domain names are registered by individuals.
50% of new .fr registrations since the opening are made by an
individual.
370 registrars have registered at least one .fr domain name for an individual.

Geographic distribution

The AFNIC has issued two different maps of the geographic distribution of .fr domain names registered by individuals depending on the address
of the holders. These maps allow to underline a few facts.

1. Geographic distribution of .fr domain names registered by individuals

Click to enlarge.

This map underlines the weight of each Departments (administrative units in France) in terms of .fr domain names registered by individuals
compared with the total of .fr domains registered by individuals.

We can see high concentrations around the big cities:
Paris and its suburbs, Lille, Strasbourg, Metz and Nancy, Lyon, Nice and Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Rouen, Rennes, Nantes and Angers.

2. Ratio between the number of .fr domain names registered by individuals and the population of each Department (per thousand)

Click to enlarge.

The analysis per thousand residents completes the first map by calculating the ratio between the number of domains registered by individuals in a Department and its population.

Once again the same concentrations as in the first map appear, but we can see that the number of Departments where the ratio is higher than 1 per 1000 represents approximately half the total Departments. This allows to underline some areas that did not appear in the first map but in which .fr domains were highly requested in comparison with the population:
Haute-Savoie, Maine et Loire, Var or Meurthe et Moselle.

Paris and the Hauts-de-Seine Departments are first, like in the update published in June 2006. In these Departments more than 4 .fr domains are registered for 1000 residents.

Then comes Alpes-Maritimes, Haute-Garonne, Hérault, Rhône, Bas-Rhin, Yvelines, Essonne and Val De Marne Departments with results between 2
and 4 domains registered for 1000 residents.

 

The AFNIC: a resource and expertise centre at your service

Besides beeing a privileged observer of the market, the AFNIC counts rare competences and wants to be a resource and information centre for
the French Internet Community.

These first statistical elements will be updated in the future, making the AFNIC one of the observatory points of the Internet in France, with a specialization in domain names.

About the AFNIC
(Association Française pour le Nommage Internet en Coopération )

Non-profit organization, the AFNIC is in charge of the administrative and technical management of the .fr (France) and .re (Reunion Island) Internet domain names.
The AFNIC brings together public and private members: representatives from the French government, Internet users and Internet Service Providers.
Further information.

About Afnic

Afnic is the acronym for Association Française pour le Nommage Internet en Coopération, the French Network Information Centre. The registry has been appointed by the French government to manage domain names under the .fr Top Level Domain. Afnic also manages the .re (Reunion Island), .pm (Saint-Pierre and Miquelon), .tf (French Southern and Antarctic Territories), .wf (Wallis and Futuna) and .yt (Mayotte) French Overseas TLDs.

In addition to managing French TLDs, Afnic’s role is part of a wider public interest mission, which is to contribute on a daily basis, thanks to the efforts of its teams and its members, to a secure and stable internet, open to innovation and in which the French internet community plays a leading role. As part of that mission, Afnic, a non-profit organization, has committed to devoting 11% of its Revenues from managing .fr Top Level Domain to actions of general interest, in particular by transferring €1.3 million each year to the Afnic Foundation for Digital Solidarity.
Afnic is also the back-end registry for the companies as well as local and regional authorities that have chosen to have their own TLD, such as .paris, .bzh, .alsace, .corsica, .mma, .ovh, .leclerc and .sncf.

Established in 1997 and based in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, Afnic currently has nearly 90 employees.