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The metrics included in this category represent registrars that offer registrations in IDNs, as well as the total number of registrars.

2.5 Registrar Websites offering Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) Scripts at the Second Level [Updated Bi-Annually]

The number of registrars allowing Internet users to register IDN scripts at the second level through their websites.

Month/ Year 08/27/2015 04/24/2016
Total Offering IDNs at the second level 252 261
Percentage of Registrars Offering IDNs at the second level 14.8% 12.2%

Source: List of Registrars offering IDN registrations*
CCT Review Category: Consumer Choice
*Note: All registries do not publish a list of registrars offering IDN registrations. Numbers based on the list published by Verisign are included here for reference. Note: this list does not specify when Verisign updates it.

3.5 Quantity of Registrars

The number of ICANN-accredited registrars before and after the first delegation of the New gTLD Program, along with an indication of regions where registrars are based. [Updated Twice Annually in April and October]

  April 2011 October 2011 April 2012 October 2012 April 2013
Total Accredited Registrars 968 995 1015 1025 970
Total Domains 131,327,964 134,335,207 142,025,975 144,838,773 147,920,457

 

  October 2013 April 2014 October 2014 April 2015 October 2015 April 2016 October 2017
Total Accredited Registrars 992 1011 1160 1540 2125 2129 2520
Total Domains 149,159,300 153,272,788 153,210,653 156,149,626 157,805,298 160,046,754 162,895,634
Regional Breakdown of Registrars  
North America 654 656 778 1155 1718 1718 2028
Europe 152 162 165 162 166 167 163
Asia/ Pacific 158 167 192 198 213 218 303
South America 21 19 17 17 18 16 16
Africa 7 7 8 8 10 10 10

Source: Internal ICANN Reports and ICANN list of Registrars (the number of Registrars may change on a daily basis as registrars are terminated or added. The numbers here are reported as of 31 October each year.)
CCT Review Category: Competition

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Domain Name System
Internationalized Domain Name ,IDN,"IDNs are domain names that include characters used in the local representation of languages that are not written with the twenty-six letters of the basic Latin alphabet ""a-z"". An IDN can contain Latin letters with diacritical marks, as required by many European languages, or may consist of characters from non-Latin scripts such as Arabic or Chinese. Many languages also use other types of digits than the European ""0-9"". The basic Latin alphabet together with the European-Arabic digits are, for the purpose of domain names, termed ""ASCII characters"" (ASCII = American Standard Code for Information Interchange). These are also included in the broader range of ""Unicode characters"" that provides the basis for IDNs. The ""hostname rule"" requires that all domain names of the type under consideration here are stored in the DNS using only the ASCII characters listed above, with the one further addition of the hyphen ""-"". The Unicode form of an IDN therefore requires special encoding before it is entered into the DNS. The following terminology is used when distinguishing between these forms: A domain name consists of a series of ""labels"" (separated by ""dots""). The ASCII form of an IDN label is termed an ""A-label"". All operations defined in the DNS protocol use A-labels exclusively. The Unicode form, which a user expects to be displayed, is termed a ""U-label"". The difference may be illustrated with the Hindi word for ""test"" — परीका — appearing here as a U-label would (in the Devanagari script). A special form of ""ASCII compatible encoding"" (abbreviated ACE) is applied to this to produce the corresponding A-label: xn--11b5bs1di. A domain name that only includes ASCII letters, digits, and hyphens is termed an ""LDH label"". Although the definitions of A-labels and LDH-labels overlap, a name consisting exclusively of LDH labels, such as""icann.org"" is not an IDN."