The .ng domain is still struggling to gain traction, with data showing continued fluctuation in its adoption and usage trends.
The data indicates that adoption for the .ng remains at 231,556 as marked by March 2025 since the Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NiRA) established the domain twenty years ago.
NiRA data for January 2025 revealed that 9,591 new domains got registered while 8,339 already registered domains needed renewals and 215 domains underwent restoration processes leading to the 234,083 total.
The domain adoption numbers for January 2024 reached 215,496 while they stood at 184,425 during the same period last year.
The month of February for 2023 recorded 185,461 domain name adoptions but the numbers for 2024 reached 217,527 and 2025 reached 232,853.
The number of .ng domain registrations increased from 189, 158 in January to 221,017 in February and 231,556 in March of 2023.
Technical definition shows a domain name works as an identification string which functions as a description of online autonomy or control spaces under Internet protocol management.
Domain name ownership rights come from domain name registrars who receive their accreditation from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers to manage Internet name and number systems.
Every official email address originating from Nigeria contains the .ng suffix to establish Nigeria’s virtual identity in cyberspace.
All official email addresses terminate with .co.uk in the United Kingdom and bear .com/.usa in the United States of America and .co.za as the ending suffix in South Africa.
Out of the global total 365.5 million operational country code domain names, the .ng represents 0.000504353.
Nigeria’s vast user base of Internet subscribers combined with its total population surpasses 200 million does not translate into increased numbers of registered domain names that end with .ng.
A year ago The Guardian discovered South Africa’s .za address total reached 1.25 million among its 60.4 million citizens whereas Kenya, with 53.7 million residents, maintained only 93.446 active .ke users.
ALSO READ
Since the launch of .ng domains various reasons exist which explain the slow growth of this Internet registry. Nigerians continue to choose foreign products in addition to high domain name costs and reluctance of registered Nigerian businesses to migrate online.
NiRA President Sola Akinsanya told The Guardian during a 2022 interview that the foreign currency crisis in Nigeria was creating opportunities for .ng domain use across the country. The President of NiRA explained that globally ccTLDs experience similar challenges as domain name adoption rates decline overall.
The exchange rate caused this growth because Nigerian economic conditions have led to an improvement in the exchange rate. Users from the .com and .net TLDs as well as other entities have witnessed their costs dramatically increase.
People must consider adopting the .ng option at this time because it is less popular than other extensions yet better priced using Naira currency while finding dollars for expensive global TLD domain renewals poses several challenges. People are choosing to use .ng domains because the adoption costs are reasonable and the currency requirement is restricted to naira only.
According to him inflation has grown to such levels that numerous people have been compelled to select .ng domains.
Akinsanya emphasized that NiRA performs extensive capacity-building while implementing widespread awareness campaigns because the organization dedicates significant funds to achieve .ng recognition through natural results that equal the value of prestigious domains.
According to him, the MDAs are gradually seeing the light, largely due to the intervention of the Federal Government through NITDA, which ensures that there is a training once every quarter, for all MDAs in the country to make sure that they are on the .gov.ng domain name.
The NiRA president said the greatest challenge to the adoption of Nigeria’s domain name remains patriotism.
