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Afilias, a global provider of internet infrastructure services and registry for the .INFO domain, has released the 2009 .INFO Annual Report illustrating .INFO's rise over the past eight years. .INFO currently ranks seventh among all 270+ Top Level Domains (TLD's) worldwide and first among all new TLDs introduced on the Internet since 2001.

"After 8 years of concerted effort, .INFO is the undisputed most successful new TLD launched to date, accounting for over 40 percent of all new TLD registrations," said Roland LaPlante, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for Afilias ".INFO's experience provides many lessons applicable to the launch of new domains to come. As an organization, Afilias has been able to use our experiences with .INFO as a benchmark for successfully gaining approval for, launching and growing more new TLDs than any other registry services provider."

.INFO, which now boasts over 5.3 million domains, continues to deliver on its mission to provide Internet users with a fast and intuitive way to access information online, with over 70 percent of domains resolving to real content and over 1 million unique Web sites. The top regions for registrations continue to be North America (61 percent) and Europe (23 percent). However, Asian markets are growing and the region now holds 11 percent of .INFO registrations.

.INFO also continues to gain penetration into the registrar marketplace which offers domain names for retail sale. .INFO is now available with over 330 distributors that support over 90% of sales volume in the worldwide domain name industry.

In addition to statistics on the health of .INFO, the report also addresses important news and initiatives that .INFO has undertaken over the last year. This includes .INFO's efforts to reach new audiences via Facebook, Twitter, the recent .INFO Awards and the release of an interactive .INFO domain directory at www.info.info/directory . The report also highlights Afilias' continued efforts and accomplishments at keeping the .INFO domain space and Internet users secure through its Domain Anti-Abuse Policy and supporting initiatives.

".INFO's market leadership has been driven by a combination of its value as an intuitive string with broad appeal, near universal registrar support, effective registry management, reliable technology, and an experienced team with a track record of success in the ICANN community," added LaPlante.

The full 2009 Annual report is available online at http://www.info.info/webfm_send/99.

About .INFO

.INFO was the first generic, unrestricted Top-Level Domain (TLD) to be launched since .com and is the most successful new TLD launched in over 25 years. Registrations in .INFO first became available in 2001. Since then, .INFO has grown to become the fourth largest generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) in the world with over 6 million domain names registered. .INFO Domains are currently available in ten Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) scripts. (Learn More)

Related topics: Domain Names, Registry Services, Top-Level Domains