3,398,583 .au Domain Names under management by all Registrars as at Dec 2021 which is a 5% overall growth in the namespace. A 5.5% growth in .com.au and a small drop in .net.au showing that .com.au is what business owners need and desire. 24 March 222 direct .au domain names will become available to register and this will be interesting to see what sort of uptake will there be from the existing domain owners.
We still have mixed feelings about .au…. as it is adding an additional level of complexity to the current .au aftermarket where existing owners of .com.au now need to decide if they also try to secure the .au which will increase their holding cost and the unknown factor if a potential buyer will be scared off if the .au is not included in the sale. It is not like people type in .net.au or .id.au so buyers are not as inclined to care if they have these, but they sure might type in just .au after a domain name…
Interesting times coming up..
All eyes will be on the one word generic names to which multiple category 1 have rights.
eg: “realestate” being one under contention..
In regards to direct .au registrations; I’d imagine one word generic names to be snapped up very soon..