The number of domain names in the largest generic top-level domain .COM has slightly decreased in the recent time. This was reported by The Domains; the resource referred to the Verisign's statistics, which operates the domain. Earlier on in September, Verisign announced that the number of registered domain in .COM exceeded 128 million for the first time in history. However, it couldn’t sustain record numbers: as of the end of last week there were 127,935,419 names registered on .COM domain.
Observers find this result quite predictable. In IV quarter last year .COM demonstrated unbelievable growth in the number of registrations. Moreover, the majority of the names were numeric or simply a random set of letters, which is primarily typical for Chinese registrants. Domain investors from the USA and Europe later followed their example hoping in the future to sell them on at a profit to Chinese citizens and companies. However, the renewal rate for such “investment” domain names is usually much lower than in .COM on average, which the statistics could prove.
