VeriSign beats second-quarter profit estimates on steady demand for domain names

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(Reuters) -Internet services company VeriSign posted second-quarter profit above Wall Street estimates on Thursday, helped by stable demand for domain name registrations as businesses bolster their digital footprints.

The Reston, Virginia-based company serves as the authoritative registry operator for two of the internet’s most commercially significant domains, .com and .net, which together account for the majority of global domain registrations.

Its shares gained about 2% in extended trading after earlier dropping 8% following the news.

For the second quarter, the company posted a profit of $2.21 per share, compared with estimates of $2.20, according to data compiled by LSEG.

Verisign ended the second quarter with 170.5 million .com and .net domain name registrations in the domain name base, down 0.1% from a year ago.

The company reported second-quarter revenue of $410 million, missing analysts’ estimates of $411 million.

VeriSign also operates two of the world’s 13 critical root name servers that form the backbone of internet infrastructure.

It processed 10.4 million new domain name registrations for .com and .net in the second quarter, compared with 9.2 million a year ago.

(Reporting by Kritika Lamba in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath)