Q4 2023 report out, .com and .net down 1.2 million domains

Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) announced that according to the latest quarterly report from DNIB.com on the domain industry, as of the fourth quarter of 2023, the total number of domain name registrations for all top-level domains (TLDs) was 359.8 million, an increase of 600,000 compared to the third quarter of 2023, or 0.2%. Domain registrations also increased by 8.9 million year-on-year, or 2.5%.

As of the end of the fourth quarter of 2023, the total number of domain registrations for .com and .net top-level domains in the domain database was 172.7 million, a decrease of 1.2 million domain registrations from the third quarter, or 0.7%. The domain registration for .com and .net top-level domains decreased by 1 million year-on-year, or 0.6%. As of December 31, 2023, the total number of .com domain registrations was 159.6 million, and the total number of .net domain registrations was 13.1 million.

As of the end of the fourth quarter of 2023, the total number of new .com and .net domain registrations was 9 million, compared to 9.7 million at the end of the fourth quarter of 2022.

As of the end of the fourth quarter of 2023, the total number of country code TLD (ccTLD) domain registrations was 138.3 million, an increase of 200,000 compared to the third quarter of 2023, or 0.2%. ccTLDs increased by 5.3 million year-on-year. Domain registrations increased by 4.0% year-on-year. As of December 31, 2023, the top 10 ccTLDs were .cn, .de, .uk, .nl, .ru, .br, .au, .fr, .eu, and .it.

As of the end of the fourth quarter of 2023, the total number of new generic TLD (ngTLD) domain registrations was 31.8 million, an increase of 1.6 million compared to the third quarter of 2023, or 5.3%. ngTLDs increased by 4.4 million year-on-year, with a growth rate of 15.9%.

As of December 31, 2023, the top 10 TLDs with the most reported domain names were .com, .cn, .de, .net, .org, .uk, .nl, .ru, .br, and .au.

As of December 31, 2023, the top 10 ccTLDs were .cn, .de, .uk, .nl, .ru, .br, .au, .fr, .eu, and .it. As of December 31, 2023, there were 308 globally recognized ccTLD extensions authorized by the root zone, including internationalized domain names, with the top 10 ccTLDs accounting for 59.3% of all ccTLD domain registrations.

The top 10 ngTLDs accounted for 53.2% of all ngTLD domain registrations. The chart below illustrates the percentage of ngTLD domain registrations as a proportion of total TLD domain registrations, accounting for 8.8% of all TLD domain registrations. Additionally, the chart highlights the percentage of the top 10 ngTLDs in total ngTLD domain registrations as of the fourth quarter of 2023.