Not much to comment on this, except to note it. It's hard to draw a firm conclusion as Irish business is starting from a relatively low online base. But a rise of 26 per cent has to be good news, as is the fact that the IEDR is making a profit. Here are the key points from the IEDR's press release:
-- .ie registrations up by 26.8% net
-- .ie domain prices reduced by 20%
-- Turnover increased by 7.4% to €2.5m
-- Operating profit and interest income totalled €433,647
-- .ie maintained market share in 2008 compared to .com and .eu
Growth in .ie ccTLD is now pushing the number of .ie domains close to the number of Irish owned .com domains. That is quite an achievement. The country is effectively becoming what is known as ccTLD positive. The local ccTLD (in this case .ie) has effectively become the default domain extension. The .eu usage in Ireland is really minimal - there's probably not more than 9K genuine Irish .eu registrations. The bulk of what Eurid (the .eu registry) claims are "Irish" .eu domains are actually owned by US and Canadian cyberwarehousing/cybersquatting operations. I've seen Irish small businesses dropping their .eu domains as they consider them to be a waste of money. The second most important country code extension in Ireland (after .ie) is actually .uk ccTLD with at least 10K Irish registrations.
Posted by: John McCormac | July 24, 2009 at 01:24 PM
IEDR are not even following the (spirit) of their own rules any more especially in relation to .ie personal domains.
All you have to do now is register your firstname or surname as a Registered Business Name with the Companies Registration Office and then apply for its .ie address.
Examples are many: e.g.
gilmore.ie
john.ie
mark.ie
elaine.ie
Posted by: Mark Bohan | October 27, 2009 at 07:41 PM