China, Australia and India have moved into the top 10 foreign countries in domain name registrations for .com., .net and .org, according to Network Solutions (NSI).
China's and India's growth, along with that of Korea, which was placed at No. 12, are partly due to declining online costs in those countries, NSI officials said.
For example, in India late last year the government opened channels for privately run Internet service providers to compete in offering cheaper dial-up Internet connections, NSI officials said.
India, China and Australia replaced the Netherlands, Hong Kong and Japan in the top 10, moving them to the top 15, NSI said.
The US still leads in domain name registrations by a wide margin, accounting for about 73 per cent of all registrations for the three names, NSI said.
The number of new international registrations totalled 230,000 in the first quarter of the year, up from 168,000 in the previous quarter. The 230,000 represent growth of 135 per cent over the 98,000 international registrations in the first quarter of last year, NSI reported.
"Growth in international registrations proves once again that 'dot com' is one of the few phrases understood in every language on earth," said Doug Wolford, NSI senior vice president.
Following the US, the top 15 countries in .com, .net and .org registrations are:
1. Canada
2. United Kingdom
3. France
4. Germany
5. Sweden
6. Spain
7. Italy
8. China
9. Australia
10. India
11. The Netherlands
12. Korea
13. Hong Kong
14. Japan
15. Turkey
NSI didn't list the total registrations per country, except for the US, which had 4.2 million as of the end of March.