Verisign has published the latest edition of its Domain Name Industry Brief (DNIB). It sums up the results of the Q4 of 2023 and the results of the past year as a whole. According to Verisign, as of December 31, 2023, there were 359.8 million domain names registered worldwide. This is 0.2% - or 600,000 domain names - more than in the Q3 of 2023. Compared to the previous year, the increase was 2.5% or 8.9 million registrations in absolute numbers.
Domain Name Industry Brief reiterates the unpleasant situation in the .COM and .NET domains managed by Verisign itself, previously announced in its financial report. The number of registrations continues to decline. At the end of the Q4, the total number of registrations in two domain zones amounted to 172.7 million (159.6 million in .COM and 13.1 million in .NET). Verisign-managed domains lost 1.2 million names compared to the previous quarter, a decrease of 0.7%. Compared to the previous year, the results are slightly better - a decrease of 0.6% or 1 million domain names. The number of new registrations in these domain zones has also decreased. If in the 4th quarter of 2022 it amounted to 9.7 million, then in the Q4 of 2023 it was exactly 9 million, the Online Domain reports.
Against this background, the small but stable growth of national domain zones looks much more advantageous. By the end of 2023, there were 138.3 million registrations. The increase compared to the previous quarter was 0.2% or 200,000 domain names. Compared to the previous year, national domains “grew” by 4% or 5.3 million registrations. The national domain of the Russian Federation .RU is still one of the five largest national domain zones: DNIB estimates the number of registrations in it at 6.2 million.
Well, the greatest percentage growth was shown by new generic top-level domains. By the end of the year, there were 31.8 million domain names. This represents an increase of 5.3% (or 1.6 million registrations) compared to Q3 2023 – and 15.9% (or 4.4 million registrations) compared to the previous year.
