Combined .COM/.NET Grows 3.2% in 12 Months To End March: Verisign

Verisign ended the first quarter with 148.3 million .com and .net domain name registrations in the domain name base, a 3.2% increase from the end of the first quarter of 2017, and a net increase of 1.91 million during the first quarter of 2018, according to financial results for the first quarter of 2018 released this week. The majority, if not all, of the growth would have been in .com as total .net registrations have been stagnant or declining in recent years.

This growth in .com and .net registrations compares to a 1.0% increase from the end of the first quarter of 2016 and 7.1% in the 12 months before that. Verisign doesn’t break out .com and .net registrations in their quarterly financial results. A breakdown won’t be made public until they release their Domain Name Industry Brief, the next one likely due in May or later.

In other “business highlights” Verisign announced that in the first quarter, they processed 9.6 million new domain name registrations for .com and .net. This compares to 9.5 million for the same quarter in 2017, 10.0 million in 2016 and 8.7 million in 2015.

The final .com and .net renewal rate for the fourth quarter of 2017 was 72.2% compared with 67.6 percent for the same quarter in 2016 and 73.3% and 72.5% in 2015 and 2014. Renewal rates are not fully measurable until 45 days after the end of the quarter.

VeriSign, Inc. and subsidiaries (“Verisign”) reported revenue of $299 million for the first quarter of 2018, up 3.7% percent from the same quarter in 2017. Verisign reported net income of $134 million and diluted earnings per share (diluted “EPS”) of $1.09 for the first quarter of 2018, compared to net income of $116 million and diluted EPS of $0.94 for the same quarter in 2017. The operating margin was 62.0 percent for the first quarter of 2018 compared to 60.7 percent for the same quarter in 2017.

“The continued focus and discipline of our employees has generated another quarter of solid financial performance and value creation,” said Jim Bidzos, Executive Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer.