.IE Domain Profile Report 2021 - January-June

8,000 7,000 6,500 6,000 5,500 5,000 4,500 4,000 3,500 3,000 2,500 2,000 1,500 1,000 500 0 LOCKDOWN ANNOUNCED First pandemic restrictions in effect from 13 March 2020 . At this point, new .ie registrations are 6% higher YoY . PEAK LOCKDOWN By May 2020 , non-essential retailers have been closed for 6 weeks. Over 7,000 register a .ie web address. The majority are businesses seeking to continue selling to and communicating with their customers online. CHRISTMAS EFFECT The December 2020 and January 2021 Covid surge, and subsequent lockdown, leads to over 6,000 new .ie registrations in the first two months of the year and almost 7,000 in March . THE RE-OPENING After March 2021’s registration peak, the highest since the pandemic began, new registrations begin to lessen as businesses re-open their physical premises and the vaccine rollout continues . JAN 20 FEB 20 MAR 20 APR 20 MAY 20 JUN 20 JUL 20 AUG 20 SEP 20 OCT 20 NOV 20 DEC 20 JAN 21 FEB 21 MAR 21 APR 21 MAY 21 JUN 21 4,778 4,676 4,720 5,536 7,003 6,538 5,856 4,677 5,480 5,537 6,247 4,065 6,014 6,198 6,789 5,220 5,318 4,276 .IE Domain Profile Report 2021 - January–June | 1 2020/2021 New .ie registrations Timeline of new .ie registrations January 2020–June 2021 In the .IE Domain Profile Report 2020, we noted trends in pandemic-era .ie domain registrations largely correlated with the Government’s lockdown restrictions. There are signs of this continuing. After a pre-Christmas drop-off relative to the rest of 2020, new .ie domain registrations picked up markedly in Q1 2021, peaking in March. This coincided with the Government’s post-Christmas lockdown, which compelled many offline SMEs to invest in their digital presence. While the announcement of business re-openings from April led to a gradual decline from the peak, new .ie domain registrations remain high. This suggests that despite the return of physical business, SMEs recognise that consumers want more digital choice and, in many cases, prefer e-commerce to in-store shopping. H1 2021