The IDNWorldReport.eu published a report on the state of the market for internationalized domain names IDN World Report 2023. It provides data as of January of this year and paints a rather contradictory picture, noting both positive and negative trends. If we talk about national domain zones, 84% of them support the registration of internationalized names and another national domain is preparing to do so. The number of internationalized domain names in country codes is estimated at 2.9 million. Thus, over 12 months, national domain zones showed a negative growth of -0.1% in this indicator. A year earlier, growth was 2.5% (data from a sample of 40 ccTLDs).
It is worth noting here that the national Cyrillic domain .РФ, on the contrary, is showing growth. Thus, in January 2023, its growth compared to January 2022 was 0.2%, and over 10 months of 2023, the .РФ grew by 36,711 names or 5.4%.
At the same time, gTLDs (a sample of 282 domain zones) recorded a median growth of 1.91% in the number of internationalized domain names, and the total number of these registrations was about 1.4 million. There are 74 generic domain registries supporting internationalized second-level domain name registrations, and an additional 5 registries are actively working to provide such support in the near future.
Another positive trend can be considered the increased level of support for internationalized domain names from registrar companies. Registries of national domain zones rated it 4 points on a five-point scale, whereas a year earlier their rating was only 3.1 points. The level of awareness of end users about internationalized domains has also increased slightly: it is rated by registries at 2.5 points (also on a five-point scale) versus 2.2 points a year earlier.
