Corporate domain name brand protection company and registrar, Com Laude published its third Gazetteer of domain names, highlighting the key changes in another significant year for the industry.

The 135 page report, covers all new generic Top Level Domain (gTLD) registries from .AAA to .ZUERICH as well as legacy gTLDs (.COM, .ORG, .NET, etc.) and all 300+ Country Code registries (.uk, .de, .fr, etc.).

Here are some interesting observations from the report:

“There are now over 300 million registered domain names. Of these, at the start of December 2015, just fewer than 9 million or 3% are in the new domain spaces (new gTLD) that have been introduced since early 2014.

“It is worth remarking that 300 million domains is a relatively low number of registrations when you consider that there are now three billion people online.

“Since domain names were made available to the public in 1985, in which year only six were registered, growth has been slow by internet standards.

“30 years on and we have only just reached 300 million.”

“Facebook added 300 million accounts in three years, Twitter took five years.”

“In 2016 the blockbuster Open new gTLD Registries will finally come to market. Maybe one of these, perhaps .APP or .WEB, .ART or .MUSIC will capture the popular imagination and break the stranglehold that .COM exerts.

If they do not, then we might yet see the second gTLD application round, which ICANN promises us for ‘after 2017’, being dominated by Brand and Community applicants such as cities and regions.”

Here is a breakdown infographic of the 300 million domain name registrations: