The EURid Registry, which manages the unified national TLD of the European Union, summed up the results of the 4th quarter of 2021 and the whole past year. The year ended on a positive note: .eu ended December with 3,713,804 .eu, .ею and .ευ, up from 3,705,728 at the end of September and 3 684 984 at the end of 2020.
Of course, the growth is not too great, but for the .EU domain, which lost tens of thousands of names of British registrants as a result of the UK's exit from the EU, these are certainly positive news. However, there are no reasons for excessive optimism either. According to the Domain Incite, the growth was driven by a ludicrous 23.4% increase in the number of registrations coming from Portugal during the year - .eu domains registered 55,388 during the year, ending the year at 161,283 names. As you might guess, this success was ensured by significant discounts provided throughout the year by Portuguese registrar companies. But it is not difficult to guess that very many of the names registered under these conditions are acquired without any specific purpose, and their registration is not further extended.
Other trends include a fairly noticeable increase in domain registrations by EU citizens living outside the EU. Thus, at the end of the 3rd quarter they registered 16,676 domain names, by the end of the year this number has grown up to 19,591.
