ccTLD African domain market?

[Gerrit]

What I notice on this and other domaining forums is that exotic extentions from Asia are very frequently discussed and some became very mainstream popular, the same goes for a few Latin American ones (eg .bz, .com.br, .com.mx, ...) while I rarely if ever see African extentions being discussed, maybe with .co.za and .cd as the only exceptions.


If you look at Africa, it is a bit too simplistic to classify it as totally third world and underdevelopped... Some countries actually do have at least some areas where big cities are quite modern, including good access to the internet. I think of Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana, Senegal, ... Still, I rarely see any interest in the local domains.

Would there be any value in a Nigerian/Cameroonese/Senegalese/Ghanese/Ivorian/Kenyan/... domain?

What makes it somewhat interesting is that these countries have a growing margin when it comes to number of internet users, while in some extentions some very good keywords are still available. So who registers them now may have a very valuable domain in hands if he manages to be patient enough until African internet users largely grow in numbers (which is already happening in some African countries and will surely happen at some point for the remainder of the continent)

 

[Kate]

In many African countries the Internet penetration rates are still low, plus registering the local TLD may involve bureaucracy or higher costs. Last but not least, the local TLDs are often little used (I think some registries have less than one thousand names), which means TLD awareness is very poor. Often, it's mainly used by government/official bodies...
From the POV of a local end user it may sounds 'logical' to use a more widespread gTLD like .com or .net
Another reason could be that the locals simply don't trust the management of their ccTLD (and sometimes they would be right not to).

 

[Gerrit]

Generally I see what you mean but let's not generalise here. Africa has over 50 countries. When I check, I see hardly any domains like .bf (Burkina Faso), .ne (Niger), .cg (Congo), .mr (Mauritania), etc being used, and sometimes the registry is simply down.

However, internet penetration in countries such as Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Nigeria, Ghana, etc is relatively good and on the rise, so I wonder if there is no market in these places? I would be very surprised if South Africa would be the only African country with a valuable ccTLD (when talking about the local market and not about hacks, because in that case obviously .dj and .cd become valuable as well)

 

[marly]

economy = internet usage = population = advertisers = $

I agree South Africa would the best cctld in Africa at moment.

 

[DragonADR]

We made the experience, that it is quite difficult to handle with African Registries, even South Africa or Egypt. Further the prices for Domains in most countries are unreasonably high, and like someone already mentioned the registries are often down.
In countries like Algeria, the process for registering a Domain can take up to 3 days. As long as those Registries are not offering better service and availability, I think it will be hard for those countries to sell many Domains.

 

[Gerrit]

The registries that are very often down or where very few domains are active, tend to be of the poorest countries with very low internet penetration rate: .bf (Burkina Faso), .ne (Niger), Central African Republic (.cf I believe although not entirely sure) ... Not entirely sure about the likes of Chad, Mauritania, etc but I would assume the same.

However, cities such as Lagos, Yaounde, Abidjan are fairly modern cities with internet terminals widespread so it is odd you don't see more domains using local ccTLDs. There may be a market left untouched for trading with these extentions as long as the seller is not impatient?

Another country with relatively high internet penetration rate (alongside Egypy, South Africa etc) is Morocco, and the .ma extention is quite widely used within the country rather than solely relying on generic TLDs.

 

[domainica]

I thought web activity was pretty big in Africa. Afterall, I get about 10 emails a day from presidents' widows and the wives of jailed bankers.

 

[Jose Canucee]

I thought web activity was pretty big in Africa. Afterall, I get about 10 emails a day from presidents' widows and the wives of jailed bankers.

Darn! got there before I did!