On December 21, TASS hosted the RAEC conference, Runet: Numbers and Trends 2020/2021. The traditional event to review the year took place for the 14th time, but the first time online. Experts of the Russian Association of Electronic Communications, TIAR-Center, Data Insight, Sber eApteka, Internet Video Association, Brand Analytics and other companies reviewed the various sectors of the internet economy for the year and talked about the most important trends expected for 2021.
When opening the conference, RAEC Director Sergei Plugotarenko noted that 2020 has been the most difficult and turbulent year recently, but at the same time the fact that a number of projects had to go to an online format had positive results: for example, all RAEC projects were immediately adjusted to be held online and were successful. The same is true for other events and online projects in the internet industry.
RAEC Chief Analyst Karen Kazaryan noted that there was no explosive growth in Russian internet audiences in 2020, although in a situation like this a significant increase in the number of internet users seemed inevitable. The analyst noted that this made him question the measuring methods: it looks as though the previous years’ results were somewhat overestimated. In total, according to RAEC analyst Maria Saykina, 95.5 million or 78.1 percent of Russians use the internet.
Director of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ Andrey Vorobyev talked about the results of new research carried out by the Coordination Center and the Higher School of Economics, Internet Development Trends in Russia: Readiness of the Economy and Society to Operate in the Digital Environment, which has already been published on the Coordination Center’s website. A brief note with the main research data is included.
Andrey Vorobyev reviewed 2020 for the domain industry. He noted that, in particular, in 2020 the evolutionary transition to the IPv6 new protocol continued and in order to encourage this transition, the state’s involvement was necessary. He added that a growing number of broadband access connections was one of the main trends: today, 87 percent of organizations are connected via broadband access.
Although the global domain space did not see a significant increase in registrations in 2020, there was growth in ccTLDs, and .RU was no exception: according to the Coordination Center’s analysis, the 2020 increase in .RU will be about 0.5 percent. .RU remained in the top five of the largest ccTLDs and is still part of the top 10 largest domains of the world.
Universal Acceptance is another topic the Coordination Center focused on throughout 2020.
“The special focus on IDNs and EAI was among the most important trends this year. Here in Russia, we held a number of events to mark the 10th anniversary of the ccTLD .РФ and focus on the tasks of Universal Acceptance. This will take more than a year, but we will be addressing the task together with ICANN and the international community,” Andrey Vorobyev said.
Watch the full online conference at the TASS press center.
