The .fr TLD market has undergone continuous concentration since 2006
September 2013. A concentration ratio driven by the growing number of individual holders of .fr domain names
- Afnic studies two concentration ratios for its market, based respectively on the market share of the top 10 registrars in terms of creations of domain names (registrations of new domain names under the .fr TLD) and in terms of stock (the total number of domain names under the .fr TLD managed by a registrar at time T).
- The history file for the stock concentration ratio is older, and can be used to situate the three major phases in the existence of the .fr TLD.
- The first phase (1998-2004) saw a weakly concentrated market in which most of the players were still emerging; the rate tended to stagnate.
- The second phase (2004-2006) began with the abandonment of the "right to the name" principle in May 2004, which meant that companies no longer had to substantiate their right to a domain name in order to register it. The market accelerated in terms of volumes and the concentration rate dropped significantly, the opening being of benefit to most of the registrars.
- The third phase (2006-2013) began with the opening of the .fr TLD to individuals, which increased the concentration ratio due to the influx of requests from individuals for a limited number of registrars.
- The concentration ratio in terms of domain name creations was higher than the stock concentration ratio, since the phenomenon continued to be linked to individuals. For this reason, the accreditation process carried out in late 2011 - early 2012 had no significant impact on the creation concentration ratio.
- This is due to the fact that the registrars who gave up their status were generally relatively small, thus limiting the overall impact of accreditation.
