Domain Name Registration Reaches All-Time High

According to VeriSign's Quarterly Domain Name Report for September 2004, worldwide domain name registrations reached a peak of 64.5 million domain names, a 7 percent increase over end of year 2003:

Overall Growth: 70 percent of total new .com and .net registrations in 2004 were for domains never previously registered, indicating a steady supply and demand for names with "new" brand appeal.

Increasing Utilization: In addition to being larger than at any point in history, the current domain name base is also being used more actively. Renewal rates for .com and .net remain strong with rates ranging from 50 percent in January 2003 to 71 percent in May 2004. In addition, VeriSign's global Internet Registry for .com and .net is now processing, on average, more than 14 billion lookups per day�more than three times the number of telephone calls made each day in the United States. Of these, 70 percent are for .com and 30 percent are for .net.

Increasing Globalization: ccTLDs account for a growing portion of overall domain names, and currently represent 39 percent of all domain names registered in the world. The majority of ccTLDs are registered in Europe, including .de (Germany) and .uk (United Kingdom), which hold the number one and two spots, respectively, as of September, 2004. ccTLDs represent the fastest growing TLDs in the world, indicating a proliferation in the use of the Internet locally and internationally.