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Verisign sells a million more domains than it did last year

Kevin Murphy, October 26, 2020, 12:24:50 (UTC), Domain Registries

Verisign has posted third-quarter financial results that were strong in spite of, or possibly due to, the economic impact of the coronovirus pandemic.

The company sold 10.9 million new .com and .net domains in the quarter to September 30, a million more than the same period last year.

This led to a net sequential increase in total .com/.net registrations of 1.65 million. It ended the quarter with 163.7 million names under management.

This strong performance led Verisign to increase its guidance for the full year. It now says domain growth will be between 3.5% and 4% compared to 2019.

That represents an increase from 2.75% at the low end of the range the company predicted three months ago and a lowered expectation of 2% in April.

CEO Jim Bidzos told analysts that there’s still some coronavirus-related uncertainty, along with the usual Q4 seasonable weakness, baked into the guidance, despite two consecutive quarters of decent growth.

Renewal rates, which were their lowest for years in Q2, recovered slightly, up from 72.8% to 73.5%.

For Q3, Verisign reported net income of $171 million, compared to $154 million a year ago, on revenue that was up 3.1% at $318 million. The bottom line was aided by $24 million in tax benefits.

Bidzos repeated the company’s commitment to not raise .com prices until March, while confirmed that its fee will definitely go up at some point over the next 12 months.

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Comments (1)

  1. John says:

    Time to take a closer look at how Verisign obtained its no-bid, perpetual, monopoly contracts with ICANN.

    Once Verisign attempts to raise prices even further – harm to consumers even greater.

    Verisign will only have themselves to blame.

    Antitrust Advisory: VeriSign Still On the Hook for Antitrust Allegations

    https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/antitrust-advisory-verisign-still-on-th-04725/

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