The registration of Nigerian domain name, .ng country code top-level domain, grew by 22 per cent in eight months to reach 125,814 in August 2018. Analyses of the latest data obtained from the Nigeria Internet Registration Association on Friday showed that the number of .ng domain increased by 22,718 from January to August this year.

In January 2018, the statistics showed that 103,096 units of .ng domain registration were recorded by NiRA; 106,736 in February; 108,599 ng domain in March; and 111,146 in April.

According to NiRA records, the number of .ng domain was 114,308 in May, 118,264 in June, and 123,812 in July 2018.

The data showed that a total of 37,313 units of new domain registration were recorded in the eight months under review; with 20,557 domain renewals and 587 domains transferred to other registrars.

“The monthly rate of growth of the domain name registration is encouraging. In August 2018, there were 5,161 newly registered domain names as against the 4,274 done at the same time in 2017. Altogether, there were 105,508 active domain names at the third level and another 20,306 active domain names at the second level, making a total of 125,814 active domains altogether,” NiRA said.

According to NiRA, the growing number of registration shows that Nigerians continue to embrace the .ng brand and indicates the efforts of the NiRA accredited registrars in growing the country’s ccTLD. The association stated that the .ng ccTLD is the second fastest growing registry in Africa.

Commenting recently on the increasing registration of .ng domain, the President, NiRA, Mr. Sunday Folayan, noted that the good synergy between National Information Technology Development Agency and NiRA had greatly contributed to the adoption of .gov.ng domain by the various Ministries, Departments and Agencies and had positively impacted on the growth of .ng domain registration.

Mr. Sunday Folayan, President, Nigeria Internet Registration Association,  said there had been an exponential growth, about 50 per cent year-on-year, of .ng domain from 3,000 to over 100,000 in the last few years, adding that the market potential of Nigeria’s .ng domain was worth N37bn.

He added that the growth had been fuelled by the fact that Nigerians were beginning to realise that it was more expensive to register a non .ng domain name. According to him, the fall in the value of naira has made it clear to business owners that it is capital flight to register non .ng domain names.

The Chief Executive Officer, Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria, Muhammed Rudman, recently emphasised the importance of hosting websites within the country, saying the move would yield economic benefits for Nigeria. According to him, Nigeria is blessed with content from the entertainment industry, which can be monetised when the country interconnects with other African countries.

He said, “If the information is not closer to the end user, it means the end user will pay for that access, which will be expensive and there will be latency delay in terms of the distance. If Nigeria interconnects to most of the West African countries, it will ensure that all the major content providers will come into Nigeria. When they come into Nigeria, it means business opportunities for the data centres and the hosting companies.”