The study found that about 79% of the Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs) in India used the “.com” domain name, compared to 46% that use “in” or India’s country-level domain name that the government is trying to popularise. About 25% SMBs use a combination of both “.com” and “.in” domain names for their websites. The reason why businesses choose “.com” over “.in” is because it is the most trusted or recognisable domain name.
“The small and medium businesses in India are growing and becoming a lot more digitised. But a bulk of them are still using emails like Gmail, instead of a professional email ID. Moving from a traditional Gmail or Yahoo to their own company email IDs creates a more professional image for a small business,” said Pari Natarajan, CEO, Zinnov.
Having a website with the proper domain name will also help SMBs better control their search, marketing and online payments and transactions, Natarajan added. The domain name count in India has gone up from 3.5 million in 2013, to 4.9 million until June this year, the study has found. However, the domain penetration ratio, or the number of domain names per 100 users in India is currently 1.1% compared to 43.6% in the US.
Of the 1.56 million active domain names in India, 40% are used for websites, 10-12% for professional email services, 3-4% for mobile-enabled websites and less than 1% each for redirecting to trade portals or social media websites.
It is in the businesses’ interest to have a website using a proper domain name because it could have a direct impact on revenues. “There is a significant opportunity for SMBs to grow their top line by making customer discovery extremely easy using domain as the primary way to enter the internet,” said Natarajan.
For example, a small artisan in Karnataka can reach their customer better and more directly than having to go through the traditional network of distributors and resellers. State wise, Delhi and Maharashtra top the list of the highest domain name registrations, followed by Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Telangana. Region wise, south India has 33% domain name adoption, north India has 31%, west India has 29% and the east has only about 7%.
Source: Economic Times