Most of these IDNs are declining

Kassey Lee examines how these IDNs have performed since the beginning of last year.

I wrote about the Chinese IDN extensions in January 2020. Now, about one and half years later, it’s time to check-in and see how they’re faring.

I used Namestat.org to find the number of domain registrations for each of the Top 10 Chinese IDN extensions as of June 2021:

.网址 (web address), .手机 (mobile phone), .公司 (company), .在线 (online), .商标 (trademark), .商城 (mall), .网络 (network), .我爱你 (i love you), .网店 (web shop), .中文网 (Chinese web)

For the 2020 figures, I copied them from my last article mentioned earlier. Here’s the list.

Look at the best extension .网址 (web address). It peaked at 380,000 domains in 2015. Since then, it’s been on a downward trend. Compared with last year’s figure, it has dropped a whopping 42%. Registration numbers for each of the remaining 9 extensions are tiny at fewer than 30,000 domains, and many have gone backward.

It’s been over 5 years since the new Chinese IDN extensions were launched, but the numbers are very discouraging. The future for Chinese IDN extensions is not bright at all.