NetRegistry Annual Domain Report, Issue 1 - 8th February, 2007

• 60 percent growth in Australian business's internet usage
• Micro businesses in Australia out perform global trends
• Domain registrations in Australia grow 28 percent
• Charity/non profit organisations and IT registrations in decline
• Registrations within the marketing sector increased 82 percent

As one of Australia's leading domain name registrars, NetRegistry regularly monitors the trends developing in the industry. We recognised a gap in the reporting of key domain trends.

Although there are multiple documents reporting on the global sphere, they exclude the Australian domain industry. AusRegistry, the registry operator for .au second level domains, issues the sole domain report for Australia to auDA. In an effort to close this reporting void, the NetRegistry report consolidates current Sensis, Verisign, AusRegistry and NetRegistry data, providing an accurate cross-section of the domain market as well as discussing Australia's global position.

Executive Commentary

Larry Bloch, NetRegistry's CEO

The NetRegistry report quantifies the growth of small businesses in the online environment, across all business sizes, at 28 percent over the last year. Growth has been considerably stronger in the Marketing and Media segment and I believe this is indicative of the realisation that businesses online spending has mushroomed. These sectors have rushed to establish their presence in this now lucrative area.

From the traffic and internet usage data, we can also deduce that with improvements in speed and e-mail communication amongst SME's and their customers, electronic commerce is growing at 60 percent. This growth is continuing at a similar pace and businesses stand to gain much from establishing a solid ecommerce platform for sales, support and customer management.

The NetRegistry report strives to educate businesses, industry analysts and media channels on important developments in domain registrations. This report contains statistical information on total growth, domain market segment trends as well as growth in different sized businesses.