The development of Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) is a key step toward building a multilingual and inclusive Internet. However, domains using national scripts still represent only a small portion of the global domain market.
While 43% of registry organizations recognize the importance of IDNs, their overall market share remains limited – accounting for just 1.2%, or approximately 4.4 million registrations worldwide.
The leading countries in IDN registrations are as follows:
- Russia (.рф): 769,000 registrations
- Germany (.de): 648,000 registrations
- China (.cn): 537,000 registrations
- China (.中国): 164,000 registrations
- Japan: 85,000 registrations
Despite ongoing efforts, IDN registrations have declined across 19 country-specific domains, with an average annual growth rate of just 0.6%.
While Armenia lags behind in the number of .հայ domain registrations, it ranks among the leaders in terms of technical implementation and innovation.
According to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which oversees the global coordination of domain names and IP addresses, this slow growth is largely due to a lack of awareness among both registries and end users.
To address this challenge ICANN is launching a range of initiatives, the most prominent being the global “Universal Acceptance” movement, which brings together around 200 countries to promote the use and support of all valid domain names and email addresses, regardless of script or language.
