Registrations have grown by more than 23 million since the first quarter of 2011. In the first quarter, Verisign began tracking the ccTLDs launched by Icann through the IDN ccTLD Fast Track Process, which enabled countries and territories that use languages based on scripts other than Latin to offer users domain names in non-Latin characters. This additional tracking resulted in an additional 808,967 ccTLD names being reported in the first quarter that were not previously reported in prior periods.
The .com and .net Top-Level Domains (TLDs) experienced aggregate growth in the first quarter, reaching a combined total of approximately 116.7 million active domain names in the adjusted zone for .com and .net. This represents a 2.5 percent increase over the fourth quarter of 2011 and an 8.1 percent increase over the first quarter of 2011. The .com registry grew to more than 100 million domain names during the quarter. New .com and .net registrations totalled 8.9 million during the quarter. This is a 7.7 percent increase year-over-year in new registrations. The .com/.net renewal rate for the first quarter was 73.9 percent, up from 73.5 percent for the fourth quarter of 2011.
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