Verisign's latest quarterly Domain Name Industry Brief (.pdf file) covering data collected through the end of the third quarter of 2019 revealed that total domain registrations across all TLDs hit 359.8 million worldwide. That is an increase of 17.4 million domains since the same point a year earlier, a 5.1% jump. The latest numbers represent a 1.4% increase over the previous quarter. 

Verisign administers several Top Level Domain, including the world's most popular TLD, .com, as well as the second most popular gTLD, .net. They reported total .com registrations reached 144 million at the end of 3Q-2019, a 4.7% rise year over year. As has been the case for 

some time now, .net continued to go in the opposite direction, sliding 5% from 14.1 million to 13.4 million registrations in the year ending with the close of 3Q-2019.

ccTLD (country code TLD) registrations outperformed the overall market. Total ccTLD registrations soared 8.4% year over year, adding 12.5 million domain names to close 3Q-2019 with a total of 161.8 million registrations.

New gTLD registrations saw a modest increase, rising 2.4% year over year (adding about 600,000 domain names) to end 3Q-2019 with 24 million names registered. Most of the new gTLD total (nearly 59%) has been generated by the ten largest new gTLDs, leaving hundreds of others competing for the remaining 41%.

With just one week left in the 2020 domain name sales season we will soon be closing the books on another year or solid results in the aftermarket.  In 2019 we've already seen the biggest all cash domain sale ever reported (by far) in Voice.com at $30 million, along with four 7-figure sales and 49 that reached six figures, followed by countless four and five-figure sales (you can see our  Year to Date Top 100 Sales Chart here).

Still, market conditions are always changing and with a new year upon us, we are seeing a lot of predictions about what is ahead of us in 2020. I recently sat down with two of the industry's top brokers, Jeff Gabriel and Amanda Waltz, for a video interview about the new brokerage and consulting service they just launched at Saw.com (before the Voice.com 

Jeff Gabriel & Amanda Waltz
Saw.com Founders

sale, Jeff held the top domain sale record for eight years with Sex.com com at $13 million).  Most of that discussion (published in its entirety as the December DNJournal Cover Story) was about the formation of their company, but I also took the opportunity to get their read on both the short and long term future of the domain market. You see what they had to say in the three-minute clip below.

NamesCon Global has released the agenda for their 7th annual show coming up January 29 - February 1, 2020 at the Omni Hotel in Austin, Texas. After staging their first six events in Las Vegas, NamesCon will unveil a refreshed format in Texas to complement their move to the energetic capital city of America's biggest state. The busy four-day agenda will run on two concurrent tracks - one designed for industry newcomers and the other tailored for industry pros. 

Three full business days (Wednesday through Friday Jan. 29-31) form the core of the schedule, with a Saturday, February 1 Fun Day providing the grand finale. That closing day will be devoted to good food, refreshing drinks, live music and casual networking at an Austin hot spot - Banger's Sausage House and Beer Garden. 

18 business sessions are set for opening day (Wednesday) covering domain investment, appraisal and sales tips, the latest industry trends, domain development including SEO and lead gen, site security and blockchain, to name just a few. Day 2 (Thursday) will be just as busy with another full slate of business sessions, expert round tables and award presentations, all leading up to the big NamesCon/RightOfTheDot Live Domain Auction that, for the first time, will be run on GoDaddy’s auction platform. The auction is set to run from 4:30-7:30pm, January 30, 2010 (U.S. Central Standard Time).

A scene from the Live Domain Auction at the 2019 NamesCon Global conference last January.

Highlights of the 3rd business day (Friday) will include two keynote speeches and a final round of business sessions with topics including new gTLDs, to the economics of running a registry, managing large portfolios and the power of domains in social media, to cite just a few examples. You can see the full schedule here. While the topics and times have been set, the roster of speakers is still being assembled and will be announced soon. 

A scene from the Internet Commerce Association's 2019 Annual Member's Dinner 
held in Las Vegas last January during NamesCon Global 2019.

One other note, NamesCon Global is allowing us to provide all of our readers with a special registration link that will give you 20% off the standard price for tickets to NamesCon Global 2020. NamesCon has also obtained a block of discounted hotel rooms at the Omni that can be booked here. We would love to see you in person in Austin but for those who can't make it, we will, as always, be on site to provide daily photos and highlights from the big event.