Global Domain Names Pass 350 Million in First Quarter: Verisign

Domain name registrations continue to grow around the world, growing by 18.0 million or 5.4% in the year to the end of March 2019 and 3.1 million or 0.9% for the quarter, taking total domain name registrations to 351.8 million across all top-level domains, according to the latest Domain Name Industry Brief from Verisign released Thursday.

For an alternative view of how domain name registrations globally are faring, see the latest CENTRstats Global TLD Report released in mid-May, which shows there was an estimated 351 million domain names around the world, but also that growth among the 1,484 top-level domains around the world has dropped to a record low of 3.4%.

The .com and .net TLDs had a combined total of 154.8 million domain name registrations at the end of the first quarter of 2019 according to Verisign’s Domain Name Industry Brief, an increase of 1.8 million domain name registrations, or 1.2%, compared to the fourth quarter of 2018. The .com and .net TLDs had a combined increase of 6.5 million domain name registrations, or 4.4%, year over year. As of 31 March, .com domain names totalled 141.0 million registrations, while .net totalled 13.8 million. For .net, this continues its ongoing decline from 14.4 million at the end of March 2018 and 15.2 million the year before that.

Total country code top-level domain (ccTLD) registrations were 156.8 million at the end of the first quarter of 2019, an increase of 2.5 million domain name registrations, or 1.6%, compared to the fourth quarter of 2018. ccTLDs increased by 10.5 million registrations, or 7.2%, year over year.

Without including .tk, the second largest ccTLD, ccTLD domain
name registrations increased 1.4 million in the first quarter of 2019, or 1.1%,
compared to the fourth quarter of 2018. ccTLDs, excluding .tk, increased by 7.8
million domain name registrations, or 6.2%, year over year.

The top 10 ccTLDs as of 31 March were .cn (China), .tk (Tokelau), .de (Germany), .uk (United Kingdom), .tw (Taiwan), .nl (Netherlands), .ru (Russian Federation), .br (Brazil), .eu (European Union), and .fr (France). There were 304 global ccTLD extensions delegated in the root zone, including Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs), with the top 10 ccTLDs composing 65.2% of all ccTLD registrations.

For new gTLDs, registrations totalled 23.0 million at the end of the first quarter of 2019, a decrease of 0.8 million domain name registrations, or 3.4%, compared to the fourth quarter of 2018. New gTLDs increased by 2.8 million domain name registrations, or 13.8%, year over year. The top 10 new gTLDs represented 52.9% of all new gTLD domain name registrations. The following chart shows new gTLD domain name registrations as a percentage of overall TLD domain name registrations, of which they represent 6.5%, as well as the top 10 new gTLDs as a percentage of all new gTLD domain name registrations for the first quarter of 2019.

New .com and .net, TLDs of which Verisign provides registry
services for, domain name registrations totalled 9.8 million at the end of the
first quarter of 2019, compared to 9.6 million at the end of the first quarter
of 2018.

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