Nigeria has achieved a significant milestone in the digital landscape by surpassing 4.33 million domain name registrations, securing its position as the second-largest market in Africa.
This achievement was highlighted in the latest Africa Domain Name Industry report, commissioned by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers in collaboration with PowerSoft Africa.
The comprehensive study, covering 54 countries across the continent, revealed that Nigeria had moved up to second place in the African domain name industry, following South Africa. This leap underscores Nigeria’s growing prominence in the digital domain space.
As of November 2023, the report indicated that African country code top-level domains (ccTLDs) had reached 4.33 million registrations.
In addition, there are 1.4 million generic top-level domain (gTLD) registrations from African entities, reflecting robust growth in the region’s digital economy.
The ICANN report, released by the Coalition for Digital Africa at ICANN 80 in Kigali, Rwanda, also highlighted the challenges facing the continent.
High internet access costs continue to limit widespread usage, with the average African spending about 4 per cent of their monthly income on 1GB of data, which is double the global affordability target.
Despite these challenges, the projected average annual growth rate for domain names across Africa stands at 12.4 per cent. This indicates substantial opportunities for local providers to expand their services and cater to the increasing demand.
The report noted that over 1.1 million kilometers of terrestrial and submarine fiber cables interconnect the continent, enhancing cross-border communications and internet access.
However, it also pointed out that a significant concentration of web content and domain hosting was localized in only a few countries, emphasizing the need for more widespread and localized internet services.
For Nigeria, the study highlighted the country’s robust digital infrastructure. Similar to South Africa and Kenya, Nigeria benefits from multiple undersea cables. Its country code top-level domain (ccTLD) is well managed, supported by six Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) and multiple data centers.
