Verisign released their latest quarterly Domain Name Industry Brief, covering the 4th quarter of 2016, this week. The administrator of the .com and .net TLDs reported that approximately 2.3 million domain name registrations were added to the internet in 4Q-2016, bringing the total number of domain name registrations across all top level domains to approximately 329.3 million as of Dec. 31, 2016. That is a 6.8% jump year over year and a 1.8% rise from the previous quarter.

Verisign's .com and .net TLDs had a combined total of approximately 142.2 million domain name registrations at the end of 4-2016. That  represents a 1.7%  increase year over year.  126.9 million of those were .coms (the world's most popular TLD by far) and 15.3 million 

were .nets (a number that maintains that extension's place as the 2nd biggest gTLD in the world). .Net is the 5th largest TLD overall, trailing three ccTLDs - .cn .tk and .de in total registrations (many discount .tk because it is given away at no charge).

Total ccTLD domain name registrations were approximately 142.7 million at the end of 4Q-2016, an increase of approximately 4.3 million domain name registrations - a gain of 3.1% year over year (if you take .tk numbers our, the ccTLDs were up 6.9% year over year).

As of Dec. 31, 2016, new gTLDs totaled 25.6 million domain name registrations, which represents 7.8% of total domain name registrations worldwide.

Verisign publishes the Domain Name Industry Brief to provide internet users throughout the world with statistical and analytical research and data on the domain name industry.