⚠ Two Populations, One NumberModerate threat
VeriSign (VRSN) — threat to the moat
One percentage sign covering a business's actual address and a speculator's unsold inventory, with the split undisclosed and all the variance in the second half.
The renewal rate is two very different numbers wearing one percentage sign.
The reported figure was 76.3% for the first quarter of 2026, against 75.5% a year earlier and 72.2% at the 2024 trough.1 Inside it sit commercial registrations — a business's actual address, which renews at rates approaching certainty because not renewing means going dark — and speculative inventory, including bulk portfolio names and first-year promotional registrations sold at a dollar that were never expected to renew at ten.
VeriSign does not disclose the split, and there is no way to derive it from outside. That makes the single most-watched operating metric in the company genuinely ambiguous. A rise from 72% to 76% could mean commercial registrants are more committed, or that registrars simply ran fewer dollar promotions two years earlier — a strategy decision taken in somebody else's boardroom.2
The figure is also always late. Renewal rates are not fully measurable until 45 days after quarter-end, so every quarter reports the previous quarter's rate.
What would resolve it is a disclosure VeriSign has never made and has no incentive to make.
- ReportedThe reported renewal rate was 76.3% for the first quarter of 2026 against 75.5% a year earlier, and is not fully measurable until 45 days after quarter-end.VeriSign, Inc., Reports Second Quarter 2026 Results — Form 8-K Exhibit 99.1, 23 July 2026. Revenue $435 million, up 6.0% year over year; operating income $296 million against $281 million; net income $217 million and diluted EPS $2.38 against $207 million and $2.21. Cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities $1.03 billion, up $454 million from year-end 2025; deferred revenues $1.45 billion at 30 June 2026, up $64 million from year-end. Cash flow from operations $232 million. On 26 June 2026 VeriSign issued $550 million of 5.10% Senior Notes due 2031 and on 20 July 2026 used the proceeds with cash on hand to redeem $550 million of 4.75% Senior Notes due 2027. 0.7 million shares repurchased for $197 million; an additional $884 million authorised effective 23 July 2026 bringing the total authorisation to $1.50 billion; a quarterly dividend of $0.81 per share declared on 20 July 2026. The domain name base ended at 179.1 million .com and .net registrations, a 5.1% increase year over year and a net increase of 3.05 million in the quarter; a record 12.7 million new registrations were processed against 10.4 million; the final first-quarter 2026 renewal rate was 76.3% against 75.5%. CEO Jim Bidzos: the record of 100% availability for the .com and .net domain name resolution system was extended to 29 years, and more than 100% of free cash flow was returned to the investing public through dividends and share repurchases. The .web top-level domain has been delegated into the DNS root zone with VeriSign as the designated registry operator. — Q2 2026 · publ. 2026-07-23 · source ↗
- ReportedThe third-quarter 2024 renewal rate was approximately 72.3% amid a shift by U.S. registrars away from promotional customer acquisition.Domain Name Wire — price increases boost revenue at Verisign as domain registrations continue to slide. The .com and .net base fell for a sixth consecutive quarter to 169.6 million at the end of the third quarter of 2024, down 2.5% year over year, with U.S. registrars prioritising revenue per customer over customer acquisition and very low-cost new gTLDs taking share; the third-quarter 2024 renewal rate was approximately 72.3%. — Q3 2024 · publ. 2024-10-25 · source ↗