Full year domain guidance (again) — Verisign lowers
Firm predicts full year growth of 1% or less.
Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) disclosed third quarter earnings following the market closed today.
The firm’s revenue was $357 million, up 6.8% year over year. It ran an operating margin of 66.3% and generated operating cash flows of $262 million.
The .com and .net namespaces ended the quarter with 174.2 million domain names. That’s up 1.2% year over year but down regarding 160,000 domains compared to the end of Q2 2022. It’s the second consecutive quarter-over-quarter decline in the base.
For the year, Verisign expects the domain base to grow just 0.25% to 1.0%. That’s down from its previous forecast of 0.5% to 1.5%. At the beginning of the year, it forecasted that the base would grow 2.5% to 4.5%.
A number of factors are leading to the decline:
- A hangover from the Covid boom, with registration numbers returning to pre-pandemic levels
- Global macroeconomic headwinds
- Fewer registrations in China and higher registrations there last year that are renewing at lower rates
- .Com price increases – although Verisign hasn’t pointed to this, it’s probably losing some registrations since of the 7% .com price hike this year. Granted, the low price elasticity of .com domains has helped the firm grow revenue despite the decline in domains under management.
