Latest Verisign Quarterly Report Says the Total Number of Registered Domains Is 9% Higher Than a Year Ago 

Verisign has released their latest  quarterly Domain Name Industry Brief covering the second quarter of 2009. The new report contains both good news and bad news. The good 

news is that the total number of registered domains worldwide jumped 9% from the same quarter last year, rising to 184 million. However, growth has slowed this year, with just a 1% increase over the registered total at the end of 1Q-2009. Country code registrations enjoyed a faster growth rate than the overall market, shooting up 14% year over year (to 74.4 million registered) however the ccTLD increase since the first quarter of this year just matched the 1%  rise logged by the market as a whole.

The less cheerful news involved new registrations. While approximately 9 million new domains were registered in 2Q-2009, that is 15% less than the number of new registrations posted in the same quarter last year and 14% less than the number of new regs in the previous quarter.  Verisign attributed this to seasonal fluctuations (2Q was also lower than 1Q in 2008) and a weak economy. The decline in domain tasting due to new registrar policies also had to have an impact.

The ten biggest .extensions remained the same as they were at the end of the previous quarter. Those in order of total registrations in force are:

Verisign said the fastest growing ccTLD since the previous quarter was Argentina's .AR which rose 8%, a jump they said was likely aided by the introduction of .AR IDNs at the end of March. Russia's .RU and Brazil's .BR also experience solid quarter over quarter growth, with each expanding by 7%. On the flip side of the coin, the meteoric growth of China's .CN not only slowed, it went into reverse, with the total number of registrations shrinking 8% since the end of 1Q-2009. 

You can download the complete report, always a treasure trove of interesting domain information, here.