hi all, came across this really neat study by ECO whilst trawling the interwebs this morning. here’s the link http://numbers.eco.de/wp-content/blogs.dir/55/files/2013/06/20130611-Registr... and here’s the management summary: eco – the Association of the German Internet Industry is presenting the Registrar Atlas for the third time. It examines eight markets: Bulgaria, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland and Russia. Nearly 300 representatives participated in the online survey, which supplied data material for the study. We elicited information in four questionnaires about the companies, their domain name business, their service and marketing, as well as trends. Common characteristics - By far the majority of companies also deliver services other than domain name registrations, specifically hosting and email. - In most companies the domain name business is handled by no more than three people. Only in Russia are domain names always handled by more people. - Most of the companies have nationwide operations. Only in Austria is there plenty of regional business. - In seven out of eight countries, at least 39% of the providers o ff er their customers a maximum of 25 TLDs . - The companies are, for the most part, satisfied with the service of the “domain name suppliers”, that is to say the wholesalers and registries. Marketing The companies are typically not very, to not at all, active in the marketing of domain names. The number of companies that do not market the domain names rose from 20% to 24% in Germany, and in Austria from 21% to 26%. On the other hand, in Germany the share of those companies that show high marketing activities climbed from 9% to 16%. However, the majority of the companies do not want to run special promotions for new gTLDs . Therefore, the new registries cannot really expect to receive additional sales support from the registrars. New gTLDs - Few providers will try to get accreditations for as many new TLDs as possible. - Hardly any providers reject the new gTLDs categorically. - Many providers want to o ff er new gTLDs only once they are generally available. - Many providers are planning to o ff er new gTLDs only as resellers. - An astonishingly large number of providers are planning further accreditations of existing TLDs . New services We once again asked the participants about the services their companies are already o ff ering and those services they are planning to introduce over the course of the next twelve months. It again turned out that, with few exceptions, the plans were not carried out. A positive example is the employment of tools which suggest similar domain names if the customer’s desired domain name is not available. Here, the figure climbed from 24% to 33% in Austria. The plans were in fact implemented there. On the other hand, the portfolio shrank for a few services. Take domain names in the secondary market in Austria for example. Here, the number of those providers who o ff er the pertinent services declined from 22% to 14%. A total of 67% of participants, compared to 45% last year, are not planning on including a service of this kind in their portfolio to begin with. DNSSEC Despite the hype about the security extensions for the DNS to prevent so-called DNS cache poisoning, significant use can only be detected in the Netherlands. There incentives were o ff ered for employing DNSSEC, which led to relatively high demand last year. In all countries under investigation, demand is low again or non-existent. If the companies who stated they were already o ff ering DNSSEC, or were going to use it within the next year, had implemented their plans, we would have noticed a market penetration of 62% in Germany in the past year. In fact, it was 19% last year. If we add the 37% of companies that planned its introduction in the past year, 56% should now be actively using DNSSEC. The actual figure for this year, however, is only 18%. Threats to the domain name sector In the opinion of the domain name providers, the greatest threat to the domain name industry comes from the use of apps and search engines on mobile devices. In Austria the fear of search engines grew compared to last year. This was di ff erent in Germany, where the percentage of those who assume that there is a threat or great threat due to vanity URLS, declined from 37% to 21%. Forecast All in all, the providers are optimistic about the future, expecting business to grow. In Austria, the percentage of those who expect strong growth climbed from 2% to 10%. However, the general mood is more reserved than in previous years. In Germany, only 7% of companies expect strong growth, compared to 18% previously. PHONE: 651-647-6109, FAX: 866-280-2356, WEB: www.haven2.com, HANDLE: OConnorStP (ID for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.)