Verisign Q4 Revenue Up 4.2%, Renewal Rate estimate 72.4%

Verisign Naming Metrics 2011-2014 source: Verisign Q4 2014 report

From the Verisign report for Q4 2014:

Fourth Quarter GAAP Financial Results: VeriSign, Inc. and subsidiaries (“Verisign”) reported revenue of $256 million for the fourth quarter of 2014, up 4.2 percent from the same quarter in 2013. Verisign reported net income of $65 million and diluted earnings per share (EPS) of $0.48 for the fourth quarter of 2014, compared to net income of $292 million and diluted EPS of $1.94 in the same quarter in 2013. The operating margin was 55.6 percent for the fourth quarter of 2014 compared to 53.0 percent for the same quarter in 2013....

Business Highlights

 • Verisign Registry Services added 0.59 million net new names during the fourth quarter, ending with 130.6 million .com and .net domain names in the domain name base, which represents a 2.7 percent increase over the base at the end of the fourth quarter in 2013.

 • In the fourth quarter, Verisign processed 8.2 million new domain name registrations for .com and .net, the same as for the fourth quarter in 2013. During 2014, Verisign processed 34 million new domain name registrations, the same as in 2013. 

• The final .com and .net renewal rate for the third quarter of 2014 was 72.0 percent compared with 72.7 

UPDATE: 2014 "gross adds" for .NET of over 3 million equate with "gross adds" for all new gTLDs combined for 2014.

Recent multi-million dollar sales of dot COM domain names in the after-market were noted, including the sale of 360.com to a Chinese company for about $17 million dollars (US) and porno.com for about $8.9 million (US). .COM remains the strongest brand in the domain name market.

.COM demand growth in China and India continues according to Verisign.

"Net adds" for .COM and .NET in Q1 2015 estimated at 1-1.5 million domain names.

additional info: https://investor.verisign.com/eventdetail.cfm?EventID=154374

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