{"id":646374,"date":"2026-05-09T13:00:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T11:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=646374"},"modified":"2026-05-09T13:06:43","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T11:06:43","slug":"big-change-for-co-za","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/internet\/646374-big-change-for-co-za.html","title":{"rendered":"Big change for .CO.ZA"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The .ZA Domain Name Authority (ZADNA) has announced a strategic shift in its market forecasts and registration targets for the .ZA domain namespace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The organisation’s annual performance plan for the 2026\/27 financial year revealed a marked reduction in its target for commercial .ZA domain registrations for the 2028\/29 and 2029\/30 financial years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Critically, the organisation told MyBroadband that the adjusted targets should not be interpreted as a decline in relevance or demand for the .ZA namespace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The demand for .ZA domain registrations remains stable and continues to grow, driven by businesses, entrepreneurs, public institutions, and individuals seeking a credible South African digital identity,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Following a regular review of its planning conventions, ZADNA has adjusted its projected commercial registration targets for the 2028\/29 and 2029\/30 financial years.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ZADNA described the adjustment as a strategic refinement and noted that earlier projections in the 2025\/26 Annual Performance Plan were based on aggressive post-pandemic growth expectations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The authority has now reassessed these trends to ensure future goals remain realistic, evidence-based, and achievable,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The .ZA namespace remains a trusted and nationally significant digital asset that continues to support South Africa’s digital economy, online presence, and digital transformation objectives.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to ZADNA, the global domain name industry has entered a more mature phase, reflected in many registries’ adoption of more conservative and sustainability-focused forecasting methods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This shift places greater emphasis not only on registration volumes, but also on retention, stability, utilisation, trust, security, and long-term ecosystem value,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The adjustment, therefore, reflects a strategic refinement of the long-term forecasting methodology rather than a weakening of performance or reduced confidence in the .ZA namespace.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ZADNA said it remains committed to building a resilient, inclusive, and globally competitive digital ecosystem that advances South Africa’s digital identity and participation in the global digital economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PR and marketing manager at ZADNA, Angel Selebano, said the organisation would focus on strengthening the resilience, trust, and long-term value of the .ZA namespace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Our focus is not only on growing registrations, but on ensuring that the .ZA namespace continues to serve as a trusted, secure, and nationally relevant digital identity platform,” she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some local companies have recently dropped the .CO.ZA namespace, with one of the latest being Advtech, South Africa’s largest private education group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa’s biggest private education group dropped .CO.ZA<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Advtech’s website, Advtech.co.za, started redirecting users to another website in mid-March 2026, after the company announced plans to migrate its primary website to “groupadvtech.com”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It said the move to .COM reflected the company’s international expansion, and alongside the domain name change, Advtech debuted a new corporate logo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company said the new logo provided a “more welcoming look”, with it replacing the “v” with a book symbol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We are also very much an international business and wanted our Internet presence to convey this, hence the move from ‘.co.za’ to ‘.com,'” said group CEO Geoff Whyte.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Advtech is one of several major corporations to drop South Africa’s country-code top-level domain, joining Investec, Absa Bank, and Anglo American.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2025, it was revealed that net additions for .CO.ZA domains slowed significantly. Net additions averaged just under 55,000 domains per year from 2015 to 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, it dropped to just under 18,000 per year between 2021 and 2024. Moreover, .CO.ZA deletions surpassed creations in 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While just over 31,500 domains were registered between January and May 2025, the ZA Registry Consortium (ZARC) recorded only a net addition of 13,412 .CO.ZA domains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Across all of 2025, net additions, which are new domains subtracted by deleted domains, reached 24,747. Meanwhile, the net movements for 2026 are already higher with 26,802 domains registered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The table below compares ZADNA’s commercial .ZA domain registration targets highlighted in its 2025\/26 and 2026\/27 annual performance plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Financial year<\/th>2025\/26 APP target<\/th>2026\/27 APP target<\/th>Change<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
2025\/2026<\/strong><\/td>268,748<\/td>268,748<\/td>0<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
2026\/2027<\/strong><\/td>275,466<\/td>275,466<\/td>0<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
2027\/2028<\/strong><\/td>275,466<\/td>275,466<\/td>0<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
2028\/2029<\/strong><\/td>285,000<\/td>275,466<\/td>9,534<\/mark><\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
2029\/2030<\/strong><\/td>285,000<\/td>275,466<\/td>9,534<\/mark><\/strong><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The .ZA Domain Name Authority’s Annual Performance Plan revealed a reduction in some of its annual commercial .ZA registration targets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341076,"featured_media":646406,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[103802,49429,19482,105111,105112],"class_list":["post-646374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-internet","tag-co-za-2","tag-za","tag-za-domain-name-authority-zadna","tag-angel-selebano","tag-domain-registrations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646374"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341076"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=646374"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":646425,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646374\/revisions\/646425"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/646406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=646374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=646374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=646374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}