More cash in the coffers for .com registry Verisign.
Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) reported earnings for Q2 2019 yesterday.
The company had $306 million in revenue and $148 in net income. The operating margin was 65.9%, up from 63.8% in the same quarter last year.
.Com and .net domains increased by 1.34 million during the quarter, bringing the combined domain base to 156.1 million. 10.3 million new .com/.net domains were registered during the quarter, up from 9.6 million in the same quarter of 2018.
Renewal rates are trending slightly down, however.
Verisign narrowed its guidance for the year by shaving off the low end of its previous guidance.
On the investor conference call yesterday, analysts inquired about three things:
1. The status of .web – Afilias’ Independent Review continues to work through the process, and Verisign would like to participate despite not being a party to it. Verisign won .web in an auction through a deal with one of the applicants. Afilias was the runner-up.
2. .Com price increases – Verisign continues to negotiate with ICANN to try to incorporate the price increases the U.S. government granted into its existing .com contract.
3. .Org price increases – This was an interesting one. An analyst asked if ICANN’s approach to lifting price caps signals that it might relieve pricing controls further on Verisign. Verisign CEO Bidzos noted that he can’t speculate on what this means when .net comes up for renewal. He also noted that .com is a different animal because of the Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. government.
Bud says
Thanks for the synopsis.
BAU for VRSN.