The sales of the ".org" domain -- the Internet address for most nonprofit organisations -- are growing faster in India than any other major nation, a top manager for the domain said Monday.

Although India now accounts for less than 1 per cent of the users registered with ".org" worldwide, new Indian users of the domain are growing at a pace matched by few countries, said Edward G. Viltz, the president and chief executive of the Public Interest Registry, the Reston, Virginia-based nonprofit agency which manages use of the ".org" address.

The number of ".org" domain users in India increased 31 per cent in the past nine months from a year ago, compared with 9 per cent in China and 5 per cent in South Korea, Viltz said. Currently, there are 4 million ".org" users worldwide, 90 per cent in the United States and Europe. In India, there are about 34,000.

India is home to one of the world's largest number of nonprofit organisations, which include aid groups, religious trusts, charities and welfare associations; but most have yet to go online, said Viltz, who is touring the country campaigning about the benefits that come with a ".org" domain.

• Looking for a .org domain?

"The dot-org domain is widely perceived as the Internet home for noncommercial organisations. If you have dot-org, your Web site is trusted," he said.

India's information technology infrastructure has rapidly expanded in recent years, making the environment very conducive for growth of the Internet and the sale of domain names.

Viltz said he is looking to India in Asia and Brazil and Argentina in Latin America for robust growth in coming years. In Africa, the prospects were limited because of poor broadband availability, he said.