According to the latest Domain Name Industry Brief published by
VeriSign Inc.
(
VRSN
), approximately six million names were added to the Internet in
the fourth quarter of 2011 bringing the total number of registered
domain names to nearly 225 million on a worldwide basis.
VeriSign Inc. provides essential Internet infrastructure
services to companies, service providers and website owners. The
company offers a broad platform of products and services that
enables Internet users, website owners and operators of digital
networks.
VeriSign's registry, security and communications services are
essential for the smooth functioning of the online world. The
company exclusively registers domain names within the .com, .net
and .name generic top-level domains (gTLDs) under agreements with
the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and
the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC).
The addition of 5.9 million domain names represents a growth of
2.7% over the fourth quarter of 2011 and marks the fourth straight
with a growth of more than 2%. Registrations have grown by
more than 20.4 million, or 10 percent, since the fourth quarter of
2010.
Meanwhile, new .com and .net registrations totalled 7.9 million
during the quarter, up 4.0% year over year. The .com/.net renewal
rate for the fourth quarter was 73.5%, up from 73.3% for the third
quarter.
The .com and .net TLDs experienced reached a combined total of
113.8 million names, up 2% sequentially and 8% year over year.
ICANN recently renewed Verisign's contract to serve as the
authoritative registry operator for the .net registry for another
six years, until 2017. Moreover, ICANN recently announced its plan
to increase the number of generic top-level domains.
VeriSign views the introduction of new gTLDs as an adjacent
growth opportunity. This should positively impact results in the
coming years.
VeriSign has considerably streamlined its business to focus on
providing, reliable and secure Internet infrastructure services.
The disposal of non-core businesses has boosted margins while the
recently announced buyback of shares will positively boost the
bottom-line.
We continue to maintain a Neutral recommendation on VeriSign. In
the short-run, we have a Zacks #1 Rank, which translates into a
short-term rating of Strong Buy.
VERISIGN INC (
VRSN
): Free Stock Analysis Report
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