As Global Domain Name Registrations Slowly Rise, .NET Slides and New gTLDs Growing: Verisign

Globally domain name registrations grew to approximately 342.4 million at the end of the third quarter of 2018, an increase of approximately 2.6 million, or 0.8%, compared to the second quarter of 2018, according to Verisign’s latest Domain Name Industry Brief. In the 12 months to the end of the third quarter registrations grew by approximately 11.7 million, or 3.5%.

But with over 500 top level domains accepting registrations, the growth is not even, with some even declining. At the end of September the .com domain name base totalled approximately 137.6 million, while for .net the total was approximately 14.1 million.

Verisign’s 2 main top level domains, .com and .net have been experiencing quite different trajectories. Back at the end of the third quarter of 2014, just months after the first of the new generic top level domains commenced General Availability, there were 114.9 million .com domain names, while for .net there were 15.1 million. In 4 years .com has continued to grow, growing by 22.7 million while .net has declined by 1 million, and 900,000 in the last 12 months.

For country code top level domains (ccTLDs) domain name registrations were approximately 149.3 million at the end of the third quarter of 2018, a decrease of approximately 0.5 million, or 0.3%, compared to the second quarter of 2018. ccTLDs increased by approximately 4.6 million domain name registrations, or 3.2%, year over year. The top 10 ccTLDs as of 30 September were:

Total new generic top level domain (new gTLDs) registrations were approximately 23.4 million at the end of the third quarter, an increase of approximately 1.6 million domain name registrations, or 7.5%, compared to the second quarter of 2018. New gTLDs increased by approximately 2.3 million, or 10.9%, year over year. The top 10 new gTLDs represented 52.6% 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 6.8%, as well as the top 10 new gTLDs as a percentage of all new gTLD domain name registrations for the third quarter of 2018.