It was recently reported that the .PRO extension has shown a fall in the number of registered domain names. The zone was delegated in 2002, and was strictly meant for professionals due to which registrants were asked to produce additional documents including professional qualification certificates.
It was observed that the restrictions on the registration of the domain made it unpopular in the market and by late 2015, the extension only had about 100,000 names. The Registry Afilias reached an agreement with ICANN to lift the restrictions and make the .PRO zone fully open. After the move, there was stable growth resulting in 175,000 names by February 2016.
It was also reported that .PRO’s main registrar, Encirca.com eventually cut the annual registration price of the domain to USD 3. After the drop in price, there was a spike in registrations which lasted about a year during which many new domains were registered. Over a period of time, many registrants failed to extend their domains, due to which .PRO lost about 120,000 names.
In February, 2017, The Domains reported that over 120,000 domain names ending in .PRO were deleted.
The Domains said:
According to RegistrarStats.com, .PRO never hit 150,000 registrations when it was restricted but before the promotion a year ago, .PRO domain registration sat at around 175K domains.
Today .PRO has 250,000 registrations, even after the 123,000 domain name loss, but there maybe more losses ahead as the domains registered under the promotion continue to come up for renewal.