VeriSign in reporting its quarterly earnings issued today, had some interesting comments regarding registration and renewal rates for the 1st quarter of 2009 and some predictions for the next quarter.
Here are some comments from their report:
“”VeriSign saw better than expected growth with for registered names in dot-com and dot-net, totaling 92.4 million names at the end of the quarter. This was an increase of 2 million names, added quarter-over-quarter and 9% increase year-over-year.
In total in the quarter, we processed 7.3 million domain name registration during this quarter compared with 7.8 million names during Q1, 2008.”
“”On the renewal rate side, the renewal rate for Q4, 2008, was at 70%, which was down from 72% in Q3 2008. This declines been largely from non-renewal of domain names registered for the purpose of monetizing online advertising traffic. While renewal rates are not fully determinable until 45 days at the end of the quarter we believe for Q1 2009 the renewal rate will be between 70% and 71%.””
“”With that in mind for the second quarter, we believe the naming base will grow by 1 million to 1.5 million names and that renewal rates will stay within the historical range of 70% to 71%. We continue to watch the impact of the structural changes in the business related to online advertising, most notably as it relates to our renewal base of business.””
Overall VeriSign earned $65 million, or 34 cents per share, in the 1st quarter, compared with a loss of $8.1 million, or 4 cents per share, a year ago. Revenue rose 8 percent to $255 million from $235.3 million.
Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected lower profit of 28 cents per share on lower revenue of $248.7 million.
Shares of VeriSign (VRSN) are up 10% on at $23.07 on the news.
“This declines been largely from non-renewal of domain names registered for the purpose of monetizing online advertising traffic.”
While it’s reasonable to assume such given the general economy and reduced PPC, short of an actual survey of some reasonable (5%+) percentage of all the owners who dropped names in the first quarter, statements regarding why they were dropped is mere conjecture and supposition.
Even the last landing/home page being a PPC page prior to being dropped is not conclusive proof that reduced payout/s was the reason for the drop.
Steve
They have tracked PPC domains separately for each quarter & have made statements regarding the renewal and registration rates for PPC domains before.
They also said in the last quarterly report they would not longer track these in detail.
You can search this blog for “verisign” and see past reports
MHB
Right you are, and if I recall, I’ve made this same point on this before.
What we need to hear though is not just that they claim that they’re tracking PPC domains, but explain their methodology as to how it is that they believe they can know why any particular domain owner has chosen to not renew an particular domain.
Short of that; they haven’t got a clue as to why someone hasn’t renewed a domain.