Trademark owners have registered nearly 1000 .africa domain names, making it one of the top ten largest number of domain name reservations during the sunrise phase of the new geographic Top Level Domain (gTLD) 's launch process.
In total, .africa recorded 981 registrations by trademark owners over the 60 days from launch date - 4 April 2017.
"The long journey to delegate the rights to administer .africa to the ZA Central Registry (ZACR) clearly created a tremendous amount of pent-up demand for Africa's new home on the web," says Lucky Masilela, ZACR CEO.
The ZACR-administered gTLD is supported by the African Union Commission (AUC) and the majority of African governments.
Like other registry operators, ZACR monitored and measured the number of intellectual property owners that submitted marks through the global Trade Mark Clearing House (TMCH) and ZACR's own Mark Validation System (MVS) to ensure protection of priority rights as far as is reasonably possible before .africa is launched to the general public next month, 4 July 2017.
The .africa sunrise period prioritised the securing of valuable brand names in the form of registered trademarks. During this time, brand owners across Africa were encouraged to apply for .africa domain names matching their registered or validated intellectual property.
The domain is now at the tail end of the second landrush phase which means .africa registrations are now open to everyone around the world, without any restriction.