June 9, 2004

According to a report released by VeriSign, more than 4.7 million new domain names were registered during the first quarter of 2004. That's the highest quarterly figure for new domain registrations in the history of the Internet.

In total, more than 63 million domain names are now been registered, approximately one for every 100 people in the world today. This number is greater than at any time in the Internet's history, surpassing even the heights that were seen during the Internet "bubble."

Perhaps even more important than raw numbers, VeriSign data reveals that the current base of domain names is being utilized more actively than ever before, as measured by renewal rates, look-up rates and the percentage of domain names tied to live sites.

A high rate of new registrations, as well as growing stability and utilization of existing domains, are strong indicators of overall Internet vitality.

Highlights of VeriSign's "Domain Name Industry Brief" point to increased growth, utilization and globalization:

1) New registrations, renewal rates and the number of domain names under registration, all set records in the first quarter of 2004.

2) At 21% growth over the first quarter of 2003, total domain name registrations passed 63 million in Q1.

3) 72% of today's domain names now link to a Web site, up from 55% in December 2002.

4) Total domain name resolutions for .com and .net reached an average of 11 billion a day in the first quarter (indicating that the speculative purchase of domain names that fueled much of the growth in the late nineties has been replaced by real Web sites and e-mail boxes that real people are using).

5) Country Code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs) account for a growing portion of overall domain names, and currently represent 40% of all domain names registered in the world.

6) The majority of ccTLDs are registered in Europe, including .de (Germany) and .uk (United Kingdom), which account for 12% and 8%, respectively, of all domains registered in the world.

"Though North America has the highest number of Internet users as a percentage of its population—some 55%—increasing Internet traffic is a reflection of a fast growing group of Internet users around the world," said Rusty Lewis, VeriSign EVP.

"For instance, 223 million people in Asia and 173 million people in Europe currently use the Internet on a regular basis, compared with around 175 million in North America. But, those Internet users represent only 6% and 22%, respectively, of the total populations of Asia and Europe."

The Web may not be worldwide yet, but give it time. It is still growing. In fact, it may be growing faster than ever.

Source: eMarketer.com