New research on internet development trends, which the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ together with the Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge of the National Research University ̵ Higher School of Economics (HSE) have carried out annually since 2017, will soon be published. The research includes topical annual statistics on internet development in 2019 and results of the first six months of 2020. Official statistical data came from the Federal Service for State Statistics (Rosstat), the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media, the Federal Agency for Press and Mass Media (Rospechat), Bank of Russia, and international organizations (OECD, ITU, UNCTAD).
The researchers have shared the data they collected: the statistics are already available today ahead of the printed version release. The research notes that the development of the global domain space is characterized today by the spread of new domain zones, IDNs and corporate TLDs. In the first six months of 2020, the global TLD market reached 375 million domains (on 372 million in 2019). The domain space has expanded mostly due to .COM, .UK, .ICU, and .SITE. .COM remains the world’s leader with the most domains (148.8 million names in 2019), followed by the Chinese ccTLD .CN (22.4 million names) and the German ccTLD .DE (16.3 million names).
The situation around internet access for Russian users is also noteworthy. Today 76.9 percent of Russian households have internet access, and almost three quarters of Russians (72.6%) use the internet daily. For example, the share of daily users among persons aged 35–44 years was 85.7 percent in 2019 (+20.3 percent points on 2018), 74.7 percent of those aged 45–54 (+27.3), 49.9% of those aged 55–64 years old (+23.8), and 22.9 percent of those aged 65–74 (+13.1). Over the past five years, the share of Russians who connect to the network outside of home or work using smartphones has almost doubled, from 37.6 percent in 2015 to 59.2 percent in 2019. Low-priced mobile internet is the driver of this growth. For many years, the average Russian has spent no more than one percent of the average per capita income on mobile internet.
“The research aims to assess the readiness of the economy and society to operate in the digital environment in terms of internet accessibility, skills and desire to use it, as well as the popularity of internet technologies in economic sectors and the social sphere. The report systematically presents an analysis of statistical data in the following areas: domain space, internet infrastructure, digital media and digital content consumption, people’s digital activities, the digitalization of economic and social sectors, the ICT sector, and information security. Our analytical report shows how the Russian domain space has evolved over the years, who uses Russian domains, how Cyrillic domains have influenced the global domain space, and what problems exist with the universal acceptance of email addresses in these domains, among many other things,” said Coordination Center Director Andrey Vorobyev.
The release of the printed version is scheduled for January 2021.
