While the Domain Aftermarket Boomed Verisign Reports New Registrations Were a Mixed Bagged in 2Q-2021

Verisign (the administrator of the .com and .net TLDs) has released their latest quarterly Domain Name Industry Brief covering the 2nd quarter of 2021. The quarter closed with 367.3 million domain name registrations across all top-level domains (TLDs) worldwide, an increase of 3.8 million domain registrations (a 1.0% gain) from the previous quarter. The new total is down 2.8 million registration from the same point last year but that entire drop (and then some) came from one source - new gTLDs. They lost 8.8 million registrations year over year, plunging 27.8% to 22.9 million total. The new G's did show some stabilization since the last quarter though, actually registering a small 2Q increase from 1Q-2021.

Verisign's marquee TLD, .com, finished 2Q-2021 with 157.0 million registrations, up 2.4 million 
(+1.55%) from the previous quarter and a healthy 8.3 million (+5.5%) year over year. Their .net TLD inched up to 13.6 million registrations from the 13.4 million .net stood at both a year ago and a quarter ago.

Total country-code TLD (ccTLD) domain name registrations came in at 157.7 million at the end of the second quarter of 2021. This is an increase of 1.2 million registrations since the end of the first quarter, but a decrease of 2.4 million registrations year over year. As was the case with total registrations, the ccTLD drop YOY can be attributed to a single culprit. The .tk TLD, that is given away free and is subject to huge fluctuations, accounted for all of the country code drop. Taking that extension out of the equation, ccTLDs gained 400,000 registrations over the past year. 

The bottom line in the new registration business was determined by what you were selling. There were some big winners (especially .com), some that treaded water and others that lost ground this time around the track.  

(Posted September 6, 2021)  

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