Regulation

Kenyan domain growth outstrips global average

Kenyan domain growth outstrips global average

Interesting news for countries trying to grow their internet domains comes from Kenya, where recent data has shown the .ke domain growing four times faster than the global average. But why is this?

Recent data  from the Kenya Network Information Centre (KeNIC), which manages the country’s .ke domain, shows the number of domains under management rose 16.06% year-on-year to 129,140 in June 2026, up from 111,268 a year earlier. That’s 17,872 additional domains, putting Kenya ahead, by quite a margin, of global country-code top-level domain (ccTLD) growth, which expanded by an average 3.6% over the same period. Established .com and .net domains grew by 5.1%, while the overall global domain market expanded by 8.1 per cent.

Local news service The Star says the growth seems to be the result of businesses moving to websites and other digital channels to reach customers – using digital platforms for marketing, payments, sales and customer engagement, for example.

KeNIC’s Finance and Strategy Manager Hildah Maina also ascribes the growth to rising demand for Kenyan digital identities as more businesses establish an online presence. However, and possibly equally importantly, she attributes part of this growth to efforts by accredited registrars to simplify domain registration and website creation. 

The adoption of artificial intelligence is also lowering the cost, time and technical barriers associated with setting up a website. Registering a .ke domain and creating a website could take less than a minute – useful for smaller companies. KeNIC has also been seeking to expand the commercial use of .ke by linking domain owners to other digital services, including cloud-based business tools. In addition it has launched a mobile application to make it easier for users to register domains and access digital tools.

KeNIC is targeting one million .ke domains by 2030.

Could this be a useful model for other African countries? The Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NiRA) had a target of one million active-domains by 2024 but, as we reported in June, had hit less than a quarter of that figure by the middle of the year, with only 241,000 active .ng domain names.



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