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SA internet healthy as .za sites edge to 1 million

Cape Town - There are close to a million local web domains registered according to the South African registry.

The ZA Central Registry (ZACR) announced that there were 969 190 domain names ending in .za as local growth headed toward one million early in 2015.

"A growing stock of registered geographic Top Level Domain (geoTLD) names is of crucial importance to modern states because of the role the Internet can play in boosting economic growth," said Lucky Masilela, CEO of ZACR.

Despite the cost of data and devices, the results indicate that SA has a growing internet ecosystem which is showing signs of continued expansion as more people with mobile phones access the internet.

According to global web tracker StatCounter, mobile technology to access the internet has jumped by 67% even as desktops remain the number one means of accessing the internet.

Mobile

However in SA, mobile has overtaken desktops, implying that the trend for developing markets is clearly mobile first.

"Mobile usage has already overtaken desktop in several countries including India, South Africa and Saudi Arabia," said Aodhan Cullen, CEO of StatCounter.

He added that the growth of mobile internet access had serious implications for the way organisation conducted business.

"All indications are that this trend is set to continue, which creates new challenges and opportunities for businesses globally."

Results from ZACR showed that an increasing number of companies were poised to do business with South Africans as 16% of the .za domain names were located outside of the country.

Comparatively, the numbers indicate that SA has a healthy internet environment because Nigeria, which has a much larger population, has only 60 000 .ng domain names.

"Nigeria has three times the population of South Africa but less than one tenth of the number of domain names. We see that as a tremendous opportunity," Masilela said.

ZACR currently administers co.za, org.za, web.za and net.za while the ZADotCities domains of .joburg (dotJoburg), .capetown (dotCapeTown) and .durban (dotDurban) are set to enter the general availability phase in November.


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