Verisign Report Third Quarter Results With Renewal Rates Trending Up

Verisign reported their results for the third quarter of 2017, and they show that .com and .net are performing strongly, combined, with renewal rates highest in the 6 years for which figures are available. In their financial results Verisign don’t break down .com and .net.

Verisign ended the third quarter with 145.8 million .com and .net domain name registrations in the domain name base, a 1.2 percent increase from the end of the third quarter of 2016, and a net increase of 1.47 million during the third quarter of 2017. When comparing to third quarter results going back to 2012, the results are in the middle on gross figures, but as a percentage noticeably lower than the average.

However if Verisign had broken down the .com and .net base it would have most likely shown that .net will have declined while .com has incrementally increased when looking at registrarstats.com.

For the third quarter, Verisign processed 8.9 million new domain name registrations for .com and .net, compared to 8.3 million for the same quarter in 2016. Since 2012, this figure is on the higher side than average for the third quarter.

The final .com and .net renewal rate for the second quarter of 2017 was 74.0% compared with 73.8 percent for the same quarter in 2016, and this is the highest and this is the highest since 2012 for when Verisign have the figures available. In 2012 the renewal rate was 72.9% for the second quarter, 71.8% in 2013, 72.7% in 2015 and 73.8% in 2016. Renewal rates are given for the second quarter as they’re not fully measurable until 45 days after the end of the quarter.

For financial highlights, Verisign reported:

• They ended the third quarter with cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities of $2.4 billion, an increase of $568 million from year-end 2016.
• Cash flow from operations was $175 million for the third quarter of 2017, compared with $171 million for the same quarter in 2016.
• Deferred revenues on Sept. 30, 2017, totaled $1.01 billion, an increase of $31 million from year-end 2016.
• During the third quarter, Verisign repurchased 1.5 million shares of its common stock for $147 million.
• At Sept. 30, 2017, $622 million remained available and authorized under the current share repurchase program which has no expiration.
• For purposes of calculating diluted EPS, the third quarter diluted share count included 24.0 million shares related to subordinated convertible debentures, compared with 20.8 million shares for the same quarter in 2016. These represent dilutive shares and not shares that have been issued.