The third quarter of 2020 closed with 370.7 million domain name registrations across all top-level domains (TLDs), an increase of 0.6 million registrations, or 0.2 percent, for the quarter, according to Verisign’s latest Domain Name Industry Brief released this week. This compares to growth of 0.9 percent for the second and 1.2 percent for the first quarter of 2020. Over the 12 months to the end of September, registrations have grown by 10.8 million, or 3.0 percent.
Total country code top-level domain (ccTLD) registrations were 160.6 million at the end of the third quarter of 2020, an increase of 0.5 million registrations, or 0.3 percent, compared to the second quarter of 2020. ccTLDs decreased by 1.2 million registrations, or 0.7 percent, year over year.
Excluding .tk, ccTLD registrations increased by 0.5 million in the third quarter of 2020, or 0.4 percent, compared to the second quarter of 2020. ccTLDs, excluding .tk, decreased by 3.6 million registrations, or 2.6 percent, year over year.
The top 10 ccTLDs, as of 30 September, were .tk, .cn, .de, .uk, .nl, .ru, .br, .eu, .fr and .it. There were 307 global ccTLD extensions delegated in the root zone, including IDNs, with the top 10 ccTLDs comprising 66.2 percent of all ccTLD registrations.
Total new generic top-level domain (new gTLD) registrations were 30.2 million at the end of the third quarter of 2020, a decrease of 1.5 million registrations, or 4.7 percent, compared to the second quarter of 2020. Year-on-year new gTLDs increased by 6.2 million registrations, or 25.8 percent, year over year.
While the total numbers differ markedly the trends are the same, with registrations in new gTLDs according to nTLDstats.com. As of 30 June nTLDstats were reporting 34.789 million new gTLD registrations compared to Verisign’s 31.6 million. They then peaked on 25 September at just under 35.457 million registrations according to nTLDstats and at the end of September 6 days later they had dropped to 34.930 million, a difference of over 4.5 million to Verisign’s DNIB numbers, and have continued to drop to 32.450 million as of 23 November.
According to Verisign’s DNIB, the top 10 new gTLDs represented 61.6 percent of all new gTLD registrations. The following chart shows new gTLD registrations as a percentage of overall TLD registrations, of which they represent 8.1 percent, as well as the top 10 new gTLDs as a percentage of all new gTLD registrations for the third quarter of 2020.
The .com and .net TLDs, for which Verisign is the registry, had a combined total of 163.7 million registrations at the end of the third quarter of 2020, an increase of 1.7 million registrations, or 1.0 percent, compared to the second quarter of 2020. The .com and .net TLDs had a combined increase of 6.3 million registrations, or 4.0 percent, year over year. As of 30 September, the .com domain name base totalled 150.3 million registrations (up from 148.7 million as of 30 June), and the .net domain name base totalled 13.4 million registrations, holding steady.
New .com and .net registrations totalled 10.9 million at the end of the third quarter of 2020, compared to 9.9 million registrations at the end of the third quarter of 2019.
To download the full Verisign Domain Name Industry Brief for the third quarter, and access an archive of prior Domain Name Industry Briefs, click here.