Verisign (the administrator of the .com and .net TLDs) has released their latest quarterly Domain Name Industry Brief covering the 1st quarter of 2022. The quarter ended with 350.5 million domain name registrations across all top-level domains (TLDs) worldwide, a gain of 13.2 million domains from the same point a year ago, representing a healthy 3.9% jump year over year. More than half of the added domains (8.8 million of them) were added in 1Q-2022 alone, indicating a big upswing in momentum during the opening quarter of the year.

Verisign's flagship .com TLD had 161.3 million registrations at the end of 1Q-2022, up 6.7 million  year over year - a 4.3% growth rate that is 

almost a half point better than that of all TLDs combined. However, Verisign's .net TLD remained stuck at the same 13.4 million registrations the extension had at the same time a year ago.

The ccTLDs (country code domains) finished 1Q-2022 with 133.4 million registrations, a 2.4% gain year over year. However, like the overall market, momentum for the ccTLDs took a powerful turn up in the opening quarter of this year when their total leapt 4.7% (6 million domains) from the previous quarter.

The new gTLDs, who have had their ups and downs, returned to high growth mode in the 12 month ending March 31. They finished 1Q-2022 with 26.3 million registered domains a 15.3% surge year over year with the addition of 3.5 million domains. Almost half of the that gain (1.6 million domains) came in the opening quarter, mirroring the quick start to 2022 that we saw with both the .coms and ccTLDs. 

Numbers for the the second quarter of the year that just ended Thursday (June 30), won't be tabulated for awhile, but they will be highly anticipated to see how domains fared over the course of a full quarter rocked by the ongoing global economic shockwaves triggered by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

(Posted July 1, 2022)  

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