Reglikedomain industry desk

China sinks Verisign’s Q3

China sinks Verisign’s Q3

.Com would be growing if it weren’t for China.

Picture of a laptop computer with a red ball with the Chinese emblem on it

Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) noted third-quarter earnings following the market closed yesterday.

The combined base of .com and .net domain names continues to shrink, which the firm blames on lackluster demand in China.

There were 160.8 million .com domains registered at the end of Q3 and 13.2 million .net domains, combining for 173.9 million names. This was down 0.1% year over year and down by 0.5 million domains over the quarter. Verisign stated that absent China’s results, the base would have grown.

Verisign sees more pain ahead. It now predicts the domain base to shrink by up to 0.4% this year and is setting the high end of its guidance at +0.4%. This compares to an original forecast of 0.0% to 2.5% growth it set in February 2023. It had predicted 0.0% to 1.0% just three months ago.

Thanks to price increases, Verisign was still able to turn in 5.4% year-over-year revenue growth to $376 million.

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