--UPDATES SHARE PRICE, ADDS BACKGROUND--
CentralNic (LON:CNIC) shares advanced around 10% Tuesday after it told investors it had become the first web domain wholesaler to sell 2mln new top-level domain (TLD) names.
In London, the shares were up 5.5p or 10.2% closing Tuesday’s session at 59.5p.
The firm is the top “registry back-end” company, with more than 2mln web pages registered, representing 21.2% of the global market, according to market data.
This was boosted by an up-tick in the .xyz TLD, with more than 1.5mln new users coming from that domain alone, more than double the next best domain.
It is the domain of choice for the official website of Google’s new holding company, Alphabet, and was recently used by Facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg to release his September town hall meeting.
The suffix, which is sold through more retailers than any other TLD, is “the only credible challenger to date to .com”, the company said.
CentralNic had three other domains in the top 20: .website, .online, .space.
Ben Crawford, chief executive, said it was an “important milestone” for CentralNic to have achieved the number one position globally in new TLDs, and be the first to cross the 2mln mark.
Today’s stats from CentralNic come as Internet domain registrations are generally seeing increased interest, based on data from leading domain registries.
Globally the massive increase in Internet use in China and Asia is expected to drive significant growth in the number of Internet domains.
Access to the Internet has become such a key issue for the developing world that it was recently included in the updated UN Sustainable Development Goals.
The initiative is further bolstered by Zuckerberg and the ONE Campaign, co-founded by U2’s Bono, as they aim to give everybody access by 2020.