John,
Thanks for the stats. I expect that as you mention that the registration momentum will continue with ccTLDs rather than with gTLDs.
Many of the national ccTLD domain authorities are effective managers. They treat registries as service providers rather than as owners of the name spaces. They don't grant perpetual contracts on the rationale that registry service providers won't be willing to invest in operating a registry unless they are given a perpetual right to do so. Instead, like PIR itself, they put out registry operations for regular rebid. This way the cost to operate a registry falls, and those savings can be passed down to end-users.
They create stable pricing environments where companies and nonprofits can develop an online brand knowing that they won't face inflated, unpredictable charges when it comes time to renew their domain names in the future. In short, they look out for the public interest.
“We expect that the price of a .au domain will be a little bit less than what has been charged in the past,” LaPlante said. “It will be up to the board, but we recommended to take it down a bit.”
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Under the new contract AFNIC will actually have to LOWER the wholesale price of a .FR domain name, over the next two years, although the wholesale price for a .FR domain is already 20% lower than a .com "
"Pricing for registry services has dropped significantly over the past couple years since new top level domain names were introduced."
"The manager for .nz announced today that they have launched a registry replacement process and are calling for expressions of interest from potential service providers by November 29th."
"Neustar won the back-end contract from .in manager NIXI last year, out from under Afilias, after reportedly undercutting Afilias’ $1.10 per-domain-per-year bid with a $0.70 bid of its own."
-Nat Cohen