The increase of approximately 12 million domain names globally equates to a growth rate of 3.8 percent over the fourth quarter of 2015. Worldwide registrations have grown by 32.4 million, or 11 percent, year over year.

The .com and .net TLDs experienced aggregate growth in the first quarter of 2016, reaching a combined total of approximately 142.5 million .com and .net domain names in the domain name base. This represents a 7.1 percent increase year over year. As of March 31, 2016, the domain name base of .com equaled 126.6 million names, while .net equaled 15.9 million names.

Verisign publishes the Domain Name Industry Brief to provide internet users throughout the world with statistical and analytical research and data on the domain name industry.