Website Usage
When looking at domain name extensions many focus on how many sales have been reported. Always a smart move. But another thing to check out is the usage of the extension in actual websites.
You can check out the daily changes for this at W3Techs.com.
Here is a look at current top 10
.COM = COMmon sense.
Their methodology is rather simplistic (think it only cover the Alexa 1M sites set) and not reliable enough for such a conclusion. There has been a massive uptick in ccTLD usage over 2020.
It was the Alexa 1M set before 2013. Now it is apparently the 10M set. The problem is that the Alexa set misses out a lot of the ccTLD websites. Only a tiny fraction of active ccTLD websites make it into the Alexa set as they are highly focused on their local market. The .COM is effectively the de facto US ccTLD so that accounts for a lot of the active .COM websites. The problem for .COM is that it is plateauing in country level markets outside the US. The bulk of new registrations in these markets are ccTLD. Some of the monthly new registration volume for a few ccTLDs doubled in 2020.