Global domain name registrations have hovered around the 350 million market for the past three quarters, according to Verisign’s recent Domain Name Industry Briefs. The past three quarterly Briefs have seen total domain name registrations of 350.5 million (end Q1, 2022), 351.5 million (Q2, 2022) and in the most recent, 349.9 million (Q3, 2022).
In the most recent Domain Name Industry Brief, Verisign reported a decrease of 1.6 million domain name registrations, or 0.4%, compared to the second quarter of 2022. In the 12 months to the end of September, registrations increased by 11.5 million, or 3.4%, year over year.
For Verisign’s .com and .net top-level domains (TLDs) they had a combined total of 174.2 million domain name registrations in the domain name base at the end of the third quarter of 2022, a decrease of 0.2 million domain name registrations, or 0.1%, compared to the second quarter of 2022. The .com and .net TLDs had a combined increase of 2.1 million domain name registrations, or 1.2%, year over year.
Across all top-level domains, the 10 largest by number of reported domain names were .com, .cn, .de, .net, .uk, .org, .nl, .ru, .br and .xyz as of 30 September.
As of 30 September, the .com domain name base totalled 160.9 million domain name registrations, down from 161.1 million at the end of the second quarter of 2022 and 161.3 million at the end of the first quarter. For .net, there were 13.2 million domain name registrations at the end of the third and second quarters and 13.4 million at the end of the first.
New .com and .net domain name registrations totalled 9.9 million at the end of the third quarter of 2022, compared to 10.7 million domain name registrations at the end of the third quarter of 2021.
Total country code top-level domain (ccTLD) registrations were 132.4 million at the end of the third quarter of 2022, a decrease of 1.7 million registrations, or 1.3%. This compares to the second quarter’s total of 134.1 million and a further decrease of 700,000 from 133.4 million at the end of the first quarter. ccTLDs increased by 5.7 million registrations, or 4.5%, year over year. The top 10 ccTLDs, as of 30 September, were .cn, .de, .uk, .nl, .ru, .br, .au, .fr, .eu and .it.
There were 308 global ccTLD extensions delegated in the root zone as of 30 September, including internationalised domain names, with the top 10 ccTLDs comprising 59.4% of all ccTLD domain name registrations.
Among new gTLDs, the top 10 represented 51.7% of all new gTLD registrations. The following chart shows new gTLD registrations as a percentage of overall TLD domain name registrations, of which they represent 7.8%. In addition, the chart on the right highlights the top 10 new gTLDs as a percentage of all new gTLD domain name registrations for the third quarter of 2022.
