Nearly 2 million .com/.net domains in Q3 — Verisign adds
.Com continues to chug along.
Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) noted third-quarter 2018 results yesterday.
On the domain name side, the firm processed 9.5 million fresh .com/.net registrations during Q3. Following accounting for deletions, 1.99 million .com/.net domains were added to the domain base. At 151.7 million, it’s up 4% year-over-year.
The results exceeded Verisign’s guidance of 1.3 million to 1.8 million for the quarter.
The firm expects to add 0.9 to 1.4 million .com/.net domains to the base during Q4 of this year.
Following this quarter, the firm will change how it provides guidance on net adds. It will switch from quarterly guidance to annual guidance.
As I’ve noted ahead of, it’s fairly easy to pull levers to hit this guidance mark. Switching to annual guidance will allow the firm more time to decide which levers to pull for better long-term performance.
With regards to the Cooperative Agreement between Verisign and the NTIA, Verisign CEO James Bidzos stated the firm is confident that an amended agreement can be executed ahead of it expires at the end of next month.
