The auDA non-profit organization, which is the registry of Australia's country-code domain .au, reported that as of the end of November the number of names registered in the domain zone was 4,227,033. Thus, the country-code domain showed a small – about 36,000 registrations – decrease compared to the figures at the end of September when the number of registered names was estimated at 4,263,106.
In this regard, Domain Incite recalls that September 21 was exactly one year since the Australia’s ccTLD released previously reserved second-level domains into the available pool. The registration of such domains was allowed from May 24, 2022, but for six months the priority right of registration was held by registrants of similar third-level names, like .com.au or .org.au. So, it is likely that the decline is due to the fact that many registrants who registered domain names simply because it became possible, did not renew them, not finding the opportunity to sell or use their domains profitably. This is a natural process that can be observed in any generic top-level domain a year after registration opens (or a period of large discounts).
However, it should be remembered that shortly before the second-level names were released in March 2022, there were about 3.4 million names in Australia’s country-code domain. Since then, even with the latest small decline, that number has grown by almost a million. The release of second-level domain names has therefore clearly contributed to the growth of the .au ccTLD anyway.
