VeriSign Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
July 23, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: VeriSign reported a strong Q2 with revenue up 6% to $435 million and diluted EPS up 7.7% to $2.38, while operating income and free cash flow also improved year over year.
  • Positive Sentiment: The company said the .com and .net base reached 179.1 million names, driven by a record 12.7 million new registrations in the quarter and solid renewal performance. Management raised and narrowed 2026 domain base growth guidance to 5.2% to 6%.
  • Positive Sentiment: VeriSign increased its share repurchase authorization by $884 million to $1.5 billion and continued its quarterly dividend, including a newly घोषित $0.81 per share cash dividend. The company said it returned more than 100% of free cash flow to shareholders over the last 12 months.
  • Neutral Sentiment: .web was delegated into the root zone, and VeriSign plans to launch it through channel partners later this year. Management said it expects no meaningful revenue or expense impact in 2026, though there may be modest marketing costs and the rollout timing suggests revenue recognition will be gradual.
  • Neutral Sentiment: The company kept full-year 2026 revenue guidance at $1.745 billion to $1.755 billion and operating income guidance at $1.185 billion to $1.195 billion. It also said higher interest expense from recent refinancing and elevated CapEx costs are already reflected in guidance.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
VeriSign Q2 2026
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Good day, everyone. Welcome to the VeriSign's second quarter 2026 earnings call. Today's conference is being recorded. Recording of this call is not permitted unless pre-authorized. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Mr. David Atchley, Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Treasurer. Please go ahead, sir.

David Atchley
David Atchley
VP of Investor Relations and Corporate Treasurer at VeriSign

Thank you, operator. Welcome to VeriSign's second quarter 2026 earnings call. Joining me are Jim Bidzos, Executive Chairman, President, and CEO, and John Calys, Executive Vice President and CFO. This call and presentation are being webcast from the investor relations website, which is available under About VeriSign on verisign.com. There you will also find our earnings release. At the end of this call, the presentation will be available on that site, and within a few hours, the replay of the call will be posted. Financial results in our earnings release are unaudited, and our remarks include forward-looking statements that are subject to the risks and uncertainties that we discuss in detail in our documents filed with the SEC, specifically the most recent reports on Form 10-K and 10-Q. VeriSign does not plan to update financial performance or guidance during the quarter.

David Atchley
David Atchley
VP of Investor Relations and Corporate Treasurer at VeriSign

The financial results in today's call and the matters we will be discussing today include GAAP results and free cash flow, a non-GAAP measure used by VeriSign. GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliation information is appended to the slide presentation, which can be found on the investor relations section of our website, available after this call. Jim and John will provide some prepared remarks. Afterward, we will open the call for your questions. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Jim.

Jim Bidzos
Jim Bidzos
Executive Chairman, President, and CEO at VeriSign

Thanks, David. Good afternoon to everyone. Thank you for joining us. Last week, we marked 29 years of delivering 100% availability for the .com and .net domain name resolution system, an unprecedented achievement that speaks to the robustness of the high-assurance critical infrastructure we operate. Alongside that technical milestone, we're also pleased to report that VeriSign delivered strong results in the second quarter of 2026, both operationally and financially. The combined .com and .net domain name base is now at 179.1 million names, driven by a record 12.7 million new registrations during the second quarter, with continued solid renewal rates. On the financial side, revenue is up 6% year-over-year, and EPS increased 7.7% year-over-year. We have returned more than 100% of our free cash flow to our shareholders in the last 12 months, totaling $1.17 billion in share repurchases and dividends.

Jim Bidzos
Jim Bidzos
Executive Chairman, President, and CEO at VeriSign

Effective today, the board of directors has increased the amount authorized for share repurchases of VeriSign common stock by $884 million for a total of $1.5 billion available under the current share repurchase program, which has no expiration. As announced in today's earnings release, VeriSign's board of directors approved a cash dividend of $0.81 per share of VeriSign's outstanding common stock to shareholders of record as of the close of business on August 19th, 2026, payable on August 27th, 2026. VeriSign intends to continue to pay cash dividend on a quarterly basis. VeriSign's performance in the second quarter shows continued robust demand for domain names. During the quarter, the domain name base for .com and .net grew $3.05 million from the prior quarter end.

Jim Bidzos
Jim Bidzos
Executive Chairman, President, and CEO at VeriSign

New registrations for the second quarter were a record $12.7 million, compared to $11.5 million last quarter and $10.4 million for the second quarter of last year. The renewal rate for the second quarter of 2026 is expected to be 75.2%, compared to 75.5% a year ago. The U.S. and EMEA were the regions in which we saw the strongest growth during the second quarter. The factors driving the solid domain name base trends the past several quarters accelerated during the second quarter. Registrars are focused on customer acquisition and are successfully engaged with our marketing programs. Additionally, AI tools are making content and website creation faster and easier. The strength in new registrations attests to the vital role of domain names in being discovered and establishing digital credibility.

Jim Bidzos
Jim Bidzos
Executive Chairman, President, and CEO at VeriSign

With the trends we've observed in the first half of 2026 and our expectations for second half, we're increasing and narrowing our guidance for domain name base growth to be between 5.2% and 6% for 2026. As a reminder, you can monitor the progression of the domain name base on our website, which is updated daily. The first quarter renewal rate is the highest rate we have seen in 20 years. The 12.7 million new registrations are the largest we have seen for any quarter in our history. The record metrics we have seen during the first half of 2026 and the solid outlook made for our upward revision for domain name base growth for 2026. We're very pleased with the strong business metrics, which are leading to strong financial metrics for the company. Before having John review the financial metrics, I want to spend a minute talking about .web.

Jim Bidzos
Jim Bidzos
Executive Chairman, President, and CEO at VeriSign

Last night, we announced that .web had been delegated into the global Domain Name System's root zone with VeriSign as the registry operator. The delegation of .web follows the successful resolution of all previous disputes related to the generic top-level domain. With a worldwide channel of registrar partners and decades of experience leveraging channel relationships to market and distribute TLDs like .com and .net, VeriSign is poised to offer .web as an attractive new domain for TLD registrants across the globe. VeriSign plans to begin offering .web domains through its channel partners later this year and will share further details about the planned launch in the coming months. As the launch is expected late this year, at this time, we don't expect meaningful revenue or expenses related to .web for 2026. We understand there may be questions about the new products we discussed in our last earnings call.

Jim Bidzos
Jim Bidzos
Executive Chairman, President, and CEO at VeriSign

We didn't put our new product efforts on hold. There are and have been teams working without interruption on them, and the products have been operational in test mode since early this year. We simply paused the rollout of the blogs as we focused on resolving and delegating .web. With that complete, we can turn our attention back to introducing those products, and you'll see the blogs in the coming months. I can say that the products are very security-focused, that they benefit from our high-assurance, high-performance infrastructure, and that they also benefit from our long history in public key infrastructure and DNS security. They're designed to provide a high level of performance and reliability at global scale, as our DNS resolution does.

Jim Bidzos
Jim Bidzos
Executive Chairman, President, and CEO at VeriSign

We believe today's increasing reliance on online services, especially those that are AI-related, with the evolving threat environment, will demand greater and deeper deployment of security technology and practices, which will come with performance, security, and scalability challenges. Our infrastructure will address those challenges and more. Now I'd like to turn the call over to John. I'll return when John has completed his financial report with closing remarks. John?

John Calys
John Calys
EVP and CFO at VeriSign

Thank you, Jim, and good afternoon, everyone. For the quarter ended June 30th, 2026, the company generated revenue of $435 million, up 6% from the same quarter a year ago. Operating expense in Q2 2026 totaled $138 million, which compared to $135 million last quarter and $121 million for the second quarter a year ago. Operating income totaled $296 million, up $16 million or 5.6% from the previous year. Operating income was up $3 million or 0.9% sequentially. Net income for the second quarter totaled $217 million, compared to $215 million last quarter and $207 million for the same quarter a year ago. This resulted in diluted earnings per share of $2.38 for the second quarter this year, compared to $2.34 last quarter and $2.21 for the second quarter last year.

John Calys
John Calys
EVP and CFO at VeriSign

Operating cash flow for the second quarter of 2026 was $232 million, and free cash flow was $213 million, compared with $202 million and $109 million, respectively, in the year-ago quarter. Our financial and liquidity position remains stable with $1,034,000,000 in cash equivalents, and marketable securities at the end of the quarter. That amount included $546 million of net proceeds from the issuance of 5.1% senior notes maturing in 2031. On July 20th, 2026, the company redeemed its $550 million of outstanding 4.75% senior notes due in 2027, thereby reducing our liquidity from quarter end. I will now discuss our updated full-year 2026 guidance, which as Jim mentioned earlier, does not anticipate meaningful revenue or expense related to .web at this time. Revenue is now expected to be between $1,745,000,000 and $1,755,000,000.

John Calys
John Calys
EVP and CFO at VeriSign

Operating income is now expected to be between $1,185,000,000 and $1,195,000,000 Interest expense and non-operating net is narrowed and expected to be an expense between $59 million and $65 million, reflecting the impacts related to the refinancing I mentioned earlier. Capital expenditures are still expected to be between $55 million and $65 million. The GAAP effective tax rate is still expected to be between 22% and 25%. I will now turn the call back to Jim for his closing remarks.

Jim Bidzos
Jim Bidzos
Executive Chairman, President, and CEO at VeriSign

Thanks, John. While we're very pleased that .web is now delegated, we'd like to focus on the very solid trends we're seeing in our business in 2026. We extended our record of 100% service availability to 29 years. We saw strength in all metrics, in particular with new registrations and solid financial performance. We returned more than 100% of our free cash flow to the investing public. We've seen strong execution of our marketing programs, which are better suited to our evolving channel. These programs are a great investment as they contribute significantly to our long-term growth and profitability. Importantly, the first-time renewal rate has stayed in a tight range, in the mid-40% range for several quarters. Names registered in the first half of last year are renewing at rates consistent with our longer-term first-time renewal rate. Our programs are carefully designed to produce these results.

Jim Bidzos
Jim Bidzos
Executive Chairman, President, and CEO at VeriSign

As we look at the significant increase in new registrations, for example, up 14% year-over-year in the first quarter and up 21% year-over-year in the second quarter, we're encouraged that the factors that are driving the new registration strength, including our programs, have been producing quality names. This should translate to long-term profitable growth for this company. As a reminder, once a name renews at least once, it becomes part of our previously renewed base. The previously renewed rate is in the mid-80% range. Additionally, we're benefiting from some factors that include AI. AI has made finding a good domain name, building a website, and getting online faster and easier. This includes leveraging AI-enabled tools we've made available to our registrar partners. Our record-high domain name base and record-high new registrations are contributing to the ever-increasing reliance on VeriSign's high-assurance critical Internet infrastructure.

Jim Bidzos
Jim Bidzos
Executive Chairman, President, and CEO at VeriSign

We've seen a substantial increase in the number of DNS transactions to our servers. Operating a high-assurance infrastructure remains our priority and is at the core of VeriSign. We also believe that our uptime record is a significant contributor to the growth of our domains, and that reliability will allow individuals and businesses to register .web domain names with confidence. Thanks for your attention today. This concludes our prepared remarks, now we'll open the call for your questions. Operator, we're ready for the first question.

Operator

If you are using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Once your question has been stated, please mute your line. Our first question comes from Rob Oliver with Baird.

Rob Oliver
Rob Oliver
Senior Research Analyst at Baird

Great. Good afternoon. Thanks. I had a couple of questions. Jim, I'll just start with you. I appreciate some of the color you provided around the really strong domain trends. I was wondering if you could just add a bit more. I know some of what's at work here is you guys have really sharpened your marketing programs and your efforts. I think that's really showing in not just the registrations, but also in those first-time renewal rates in terms of the quality. You're also seeing these tailwinds around AI, around application development, the importance of the domain. I was wondering if you could help contextualize, maybe breaking those apart, help us better understand of this strength you're seeing, how each is responsible for them. I had a couple of other questions.

Jim Bidzos
Jim Bidzos
Executive Chairman, President, and CEO at VeriSign

Okay. Well, let me see if I can answer that briefly here. First of all, the components I can easily describe. I think one of them I mentioned earlier was our high-assurance infrastructure. I think that contributes to people's confidence in online operations. AI is definitely enhancing demand for domain names. AI tools make it easier for content creators, for businesses to find domain names, create content, create and maintain content on their websites. Businesses and content creators compete not only for attention online through AI-driven search, but the credibility and digital identity that a domain name encapsulates become even more critical. Those are all contributing trends and tailwinds. Active registrar engagement with and strong execution of our marketing programs is definitely helping. I think last quarter I called that, if I didn't use the word convergence, I should have. I'll use it now.

Jim Bidzos
Jim Bidzos
Executive Chairman, President, and CEO at VeriSign

A synergistic conversion of some of the AI tailwind and other tailwinds, like the ongoing registrar focus now on customer acquisition, where we saw this sort of cyclical trend some time ago to ARPU. We're seeing things shift as we predicted they would. There's a bit of good fortune here, but I think our marketing programs and their design are clearly a contributor. Sort of taking those apart with any precision is really difficult. Not sure we could even give you that kind of detail. We just see them working synergistically. I think we've also gotten much better at these marketing programs. I often talk about the evolving, changing channel. Their business models are changing. We've been able to adapt to that. As Mike mentioned, with .web, we can adapt even further because we have fewer restrictions on that TLD.

Jim Bidzos
Jim Bidzos
Executive Chairman, President, and CEO at VeriSign

All those factors together are contributing to the strength that you're seeing. It's primarily, as I mentioned, in the U.S. and EMEA. That's a positive for us because the quality and the renewal rates from these regions tend to be stronger. Like I said, taking it all apart, parsing it out in detail, difficult, but I think we're seeing the growth. We recognize the tailwinds. We definitely know we're very close to the channel. We understand the value and benefit and effectiveness of the marketing programs. Again, I'll say again that when you see 14% and 21% increase in units respectively in the last two quarters, and you see first-time renewal rates essentially within a narrow range with long-term strong renewal rates, that's going to yield profitable growth long term. These are all very good for the business. One point to clarify here.

Jim Bidzos
Jim Bidzos
Executive Chairman, President, and CEO at VeriSign

We've received questions about the current strength. Is it related to pull forward, related to the November .com wholesale price increase? I can't say that that's not a factor. It could be a factor for some registrations. We just don't see it as anything coming close to a material factor in the current registration strength. Hopefully that's helpful.

Rob Oliver
Rob Oliver
Senior Research Analyst at Baird

Okay, great. Yeah, no, that is helpful, and thanks on that last point. That was a question I was going to ask as well. I wanted to ask about .web also, and congrats. I'm happy. I thought I'd be in my dotage by the time that deal finally closed, so congratulations on that. I guess, knowing you guys, you're not going to talk about pricing and things like that, but maybe if you try to ask the question a different way. You guys have obviously the premier anchor asset in .com. You do have experience with other assets like .net. Conceptually, how should we think about the way in which you'll think about approaching .web, marketing .web, and how, if at all, will it be different from .com? Then I'll pass it on. I know we got more people on the call. Thanks a lot, guys.

Jim Bidzos
Jim Bidzos
Executive Chairman, President, and CEO at VeriSign

Okay, thanks. Well, .web is different from .com. .com is uniquely the only TLD in the entire DNS industry that's regulated by a cooperative agreement between VeriSign and the Department of Commerce, the NTIA. .web is a TLD like the other 2,000 almost TLDs that ICANN oversees and regulates, and its operating parameters are actually quite different. We don't have many of the restrictions. For example, like all these other TLDs, it's governed by a standard registry agreement. They are all operating from the same registry agreement, which is only with ICANN, as I mentioned, not with any other regulatory body. Obviously, there are other global regulations that affect all tech companies, but the administration and regulation of the domain name industry is by ICANN, and this agreement is no different than the others.

Jim Bidzos
Jim Bidzos
Executive Chairman, President, and CEO at VeriSign

I'd say the most obvious difference with .web from .com and .net is that we have complete wholesale pricing flexibility. The only requirement is a 6-month notice. Other than that, we have complete pricing flexibility. One thing that is in common with .com is that we are a wholesaler as a registry, and it will be registrars, of course, who set the retail pricing. .web wholesale pricing is completely within our control, subject to that notice period to the registrars of six months. This includes the ability to sell premium names as well, which we cannot do in .com or .net. Now that it's delegated in the root zone, the process, just to give you a sense of what to expect coming up, there is a 90-day required period of security testing. That's the first thing we'll do. We're beginning that.

Jim Bidzos
Jim Bidzos
Executive Chairman, President, and CEO at VeriSign

There is a required minimum 30-day period in which only trademark holders may come and get their .web registration. We'll certainly observe that. That puts us 120 days out. We have something optional called an LRP or a limited registration period. This is where registries have the opportunity to set their own rules for who can come in before you go to general availability. We intend to run an LRP, and the rules that we will use is we will give all of our holders of .com registrations the opportunity to come and get the same registration in .web before we open registrations for general availability. We're working out the details of how long that will run, but we do intend to do that. That puts general availability. We think it'll be either late this year or very early next year.

Jim Bidzos
Jim Bidzos
Executive Chairman, President, and CEO at VeriSign

That's pretty much everything about .web I can share right now. We'll obviously provide you further updates. We're excited. I noticed that it's been quite a while since we've been in pursuit of .web. It is a very different TLD, and I appreciate your question. Those are the ways that it's significantly different. There's also flexibility in how we market to the channel. We do not have the same restrictions that we have now. We can be more flexible, more creative, more engaging individually with the channel. I think that's going to translate into an opportunity to even more effectively engage this diverse and evolving channel. All in all, the prospects are promising. It's exciting. It's something new and different for us, and we've been looking forward to it.

Rob Oliver
Rob Oliver
Senior Research Analyst at Baird

Great. Thanks, Jim. Really appreciate it.

Jim Bidzos
Jim Bidzos
Executive Chairman, President, and CEO at VeriSign

Sure. Pleasure.

Operator

We'll go next to Ygal Arounian with Wedbush.

Ygal Arounian
Ygal Arounian
Analyst at Wedbush

Hey, good afternoon, guys. Maybe first, just with the guidance, the high end of domain growth approaching 5%. As I sort of look back to, it's been quite a while since domains have grown 5% sustainably. I know we are now, but looking back to even 2025 and the years before, but it's been a long time since we've been at that level. I know we're talking about some of the factors, particularly AI. Does it feel like we're structurally at a different type of growth rate, maybe driven by AI? Then within that, and you're talking about some of the AI factors that are driving the growth. How are you seeing agentic play out here? Do you think that's driving any incremental growth on the agentic AI piece specifically? I'll have one follow-up.

Jim Bidzos
Jim Bidzos
Executive Chairman, President, and CEO at VeriSign

Okay. Well, first of all, Ygal, welcome back. It's good to have you back following VeriSign again. We appreciate that.

Ygal Arounian
Ygal Arounian
Analyst at Wedbush

Great to be back.

Jim Bidzos
Jim Bidzos
Executive Chairman, President, and CEO at VeriSign

Good. Let me try to answer this from a higher altitude, so to speak. I'm not sure I can specifically answer some of the things you seem to be asking towards the end there, let's start with why is there a general increase and what's AI doing to it? I think AI is definitely increasing demand for the obvious reason we mentioned, which is that it's easier and faster to build a domain name. I think that sort of only saying that, I think tells only part of the story. The other part of the story is that AI is driving, obviously, more engagement, more is happening more quickly. I think what's happening is that the strength of the DNS is sort of shining through here.

Jim Bidzos
Jim Bidzos
Executive Chairman, President, and CEO at VeriSign

We've often said that alternate namespaces don't really have what the DNS has, which is this governance by ICANN that creates what is a secure, stable, global identifier. It's secure because of all the security required by ICANN, then we do above and beyond as many other registries do as well. It's stable, certainly in our operations because we just completed a record 29 years of uninterrupted availability. It's global because ICANN operates in 150+ countries. These domain names are guaranteed to be unique and stable and secure up to a very high level due to this governance structure. I think that's underappreciated as a contributor to the rapid willingness and eagerness to adopt e-commerce and to get online. Here they are. They work.

Jim Bidzos
Jim Bidzos
Executive Chairman, President, and CEO at VeriSign

Now, the DNS under the covers is very complex, I think AI is obscuring some of the complexity and making it easier for people to get online. I would say that might be the single biggest influence, if you wanted to look for external influences. As I said, we are making our own contribution. We've gotten smarter, more engaged with our channel. We understand what they're doing. They do have complex business models. They have evolved. Many have gone public. Some public ones have gone private. Some sell wholesale, some only sell retail. It's very diverse and it keeps evolving. If it feels like the world is spinning faster, well, it does to me. I think we're seeing those effects. Those effects and that stability and our willingness and ability to adapt to them, I think is behind our growth.

Jim Bidzos
Jim Bidzos
Executive Chairman, President, and CEO at VeriSign

I can't speak for everything, but that's my sense of the best answer I can give to your question, if that's helpful.

Ygal Arounian
Ygal Arounian
Analyst at Wedbush

Okay, great. Thanks. Yeah, very helpful. Great to see .web finally come through. We can change how we write about it. The color you gave on the timing is really helpful. Just wondering, as we think about how we build this into our models, are there upfront costs? You mentioned the marketing a little bit. Are there costs to build the registry or anything else that come ahead of revenue recognition? Just want to think through how that impacts your financial stance.

Jim Bidzos
Jim Bidzos
Executive Chairman, President, and CEO at VeriSign

Well, I think as we finalize our launch plans and marketing plans, there'll be some marketing expense as there is now with .com and .net. In terms of any registry costs, no. We run multiple TLDs now. We have a number of TLDs that we operate. We've operated many over the years, not just .com and .net. This is as natural an integration as one could imagine. There's simply nothing new about the integration of .web and processing registrations. The manner in which the registrars engage and bring their registrations to our operations is identical to everything we're doing now. It's another TLD. There's just more flexibility in engagement and marketing with the channel, which is really a big plus for us. John, any comments?

John Calys
John Calys
EVP and CFO at VeriSign

Yeah, I'd say from a marketing expense standpoint, given where we're at and the timeframe that Jim laid out in his comments, there won't be a significant amount of marketing expense this year that we recognize, and the same is true for revenue. It's likely to be fairly late in the year, because of our method of revenue recognition, you won't see a big bump. Even if you see some nice sales before the end of the year, you won't see revenue recognition happen right away. It'll take some time to build.

Ygal Arounian
Ygal Arounian
Analyst at Wedbush

Got it. Thank you, guys.

Jim Bidzos
Jim Bidzos
Executive Chairman, President, and CEO at VeriSign

Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from Jamesmichael Sherman-Lewis with Citi.

Jamesmichael Sherman-Lewis
Jamesmichael Sherman-Lewis
Analyst at Citi

Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my question. Two here, if I may. Number one, on the .web rollout, I'm curious how you're thinking about the go-to-market approach, across marketing channels, and specifically, where you think the point of sale is most likely to occur. Could these be predominantly net new .web domain sale opportunities or potentially as an attach for a .com domain sale or even upselling existing customers at renewal? I just want to better understand how you're thinking about possible approaches here.

Jim Bidzos
Jim Bidzos
Executive Chairman, President, and CEO at VeriSign

Thanks. First of all, I think certainly there are a couple of different factors here that I think should result in what we think will be a favorable reception by the market and our channel for .web. First of all, it runs on our high assurance infrastructure. I think that's often underappreciated. Secondly, I mentioned that we would be running a limited registration program. That gives .com holders the opportunity to get their .web. If they want the companion .web, they can have it. That may be an opportunity. It may be as in a new website, a companion website that some may want for a variety of reasons. In addition to that, I think there are a lot of folks who might find it just more appealing. It's very descriptive. It's a short TLD.

Jim Bidzos
Jim Bidzos
Executive Chairman, President, and CEO at VeriSign

This is why we got interested in it years ago at the very beginning. There are, by the way, well over 1,000 TLDs today that the market has to choose from. Many of them, by the way, compared to in that market, .com is a very low-priced TLD. We have nothing to say about .web pricing today. We're still working on that. Certainly there are very few that are really short, descriptive TLDs. I think this is one of them, which is why it appealed to us. I think that will be inviting for folks. The namespace will be available because at this moment, there are zero registrations in .web. For those reasons, I think there certainly will be a market. I think the channel, we're very good at engaging with them. They're the ones who do the sort of retail marketing.

Jim Bidzos
Jim Bidzos
Executive Chairman, President, and CEO at VeriSign

We try to support them in that. John mentioned that there might be very modest marketing expense here late in the year. I think maybe just getting the word out that there's a period in which if you hold a .com, you may come and register your .web. It's reserved for you. We might do a little bit of messaging. That would be an entirely non-material expense, a very minimum expense for marketing. I think there's a market for existing holders. There were literally hundreds and hundreds of new gTLDs brought to market over the last 12 years. Many of those are growing at rates much faster than .com. There's clearly a market for these TLDs. I think .web will be an attractive option for folks.

Jamesmichael Sherman-Lewis
Jamesmichael Sherman-Lewis
Analyst at Citi

That's very helpful. Thank you. Just a quick follow-up on the renewals. I know you had some commentary in your prepared remarks about this. As we look to the back half of the year, start lapping this higher mix of new registrations, go through the price hike, could you update us on your churn expectations?

John Calys
John Calys
EVP and CFO at VeriSign

What was the last word? Update us on our-

Jamesmichael Sherman-Lewis
Jamesmichael Sherman-Lewis
Analyst at Citi

Churn expectations. Thank you.

John Calys
John Calys
EVP and CFO at VeriSign

Oh.

David Atchley
David Atchley
VP of Investor Relations and Corporate Treasurer at VeriSign

Renewal rate, yeah.

John Calys
John Calys
EVP and CFO at VeriSign

Renewal rate. I know we've said in the past quarters we expected a little bit of a tick down as the mix of first-time renewing names grows because of the strength of our new registrations here in the last, call it six quarters or so. We still have some expectation there in the remainder of this year, then possibly into next year. I think I would reiterate something Jim mentioned earlier, and that is, we've gotten much better at marketing to our registrars, trying to encourage the registrations that they chase to be of higher quality, and our programs are geared towards higher quality. There's some offset to that natural tendency. As Jim mentioned in his comments, if you look at the renewal rate that we've had the last couple quarters, it's been very consistent with our historical rate for first-time renewals.

John Calys
John Calys
EVP and CFO at VeriSign

We had very strong new registrations early in 2025. I think our renewal rate's holding up fairly well, given our programs, and just the natural trends, the strength in our new registrations have.

Jamesmichael Sherman-Lewis
Jamesmichael Sherman-Lewis
Analyst at Citi

Understood. Thank you very much.

John Calys
John Calys
EVP and CFO at VeriSign

Thank you.

Operator

We'll go next to Alexei Gogolev with JPMorgan.

Alexei Gogolev
Alexei Gogolev
Analyst at JPMorgan

Thank you, and hello, everyone. I guess, Jim, could we start with a discussion around some of your plans for new product roll-outs? You talked about possible security services or any other solutions. Will those get the back seat now that you have .web to focus on, or you still continue to roll those out in the near term?

Jim Bidzos
Jim Bidzos
Executive Chairman, President, and CEO at VeriSign

I think the short answer to that is no, they will not. The first product that we're likely to roll out, it's just a different product. I would think of it this way. We are a pioneering company in public key infrastructure. We started doing this in the 1980s. This company was created from RSA, which invented the most popular form of public key cryptography, digital signatures. VeriSign was formed to play a role in PKI in the very first browsers that came from Netscape in 1994. There are a lot of cryptographic security components that come with that service that we were performing that today are becoming more important. In my comments, I alluded to the requirement to engage deeper with security in the AI world, where you don't need to take my word for that.

Jim Bidzos
Jim Bidzos
Executive Chairman, President, and CEO at VeriSign

You can see that in the headlines of every newspaper just about every single day, that there are concerns that security is going to be a challenge in AI. But what we plan to do is offer security features that are going to benefit from operating in our high assurance environment. We believe, I certainly believe, that what we're going to see is that the security challenge with AI will be met by sharpening and hardening the tools and making full use of them in pursuit of compliance with something called the zero trust principles. And that will put demands on these security functions, and I think our infrastructure is well-aligned to provide them. And you won't have to wait too much longer to hear about that. But the teams that develop it have done their work in that.

Jim Bidzos
Jim Bidzos
Executive Chairman, President, and CEO at VeriSign

It operates on our infrastructure in a way very similar to the way we ingest and service domain names. And its performance, however, will benefit from our infrastructure immensely. More of it will be needed in an agentic AI world, and I think we're in a great position to offer, at global scale, millisecond performance, along with the many hundreds of billions of DNS resolutions that we answer today with significant overcapacity designed that way. We think we can offer a valuable service.

Alexei Gogolev
Alexei Gogolev
Analyst at JPMorgan

Okay. Thank you, Jim. Maybe another question for John. With regards to CapEx, you kept the guidance for the year unchanged. Obviously, we're seeing price pressure all around. Do you see any risk going forward? What sort of CapEx needs do you think VeriSign will have over the next couple of years?

John Calys
John Calys
EVP and CFO at VeriSign

Yeah. Our CapEx guidance for this year certainly takes into consideration the price increases in the server memory chip kind of markets, and it has had a meaningful impact on our business. Our technology people are very good about adapting and making changes where they can, to get more bang for the buck, so to speak. We've done that. We've even pulled forward some spend that we would have expected next year to avoid price increases that we know are coming in the upcoming six months. We've done some of that. As far as what next year holds, we don't guide to 2027 at this point in time. Our expectation is prices in that marketplace are going to stay elevated and probably be more elevated. We're competing with a lot of data center capacity that's trying to be built right now.

Alexei Gogolev
Alexei Gogolev
Analyst at JPMorgan

Makes sense. Thank you.

Jim Bidzos
Jim Bidzos
Executive Chairman, President, and CEO at VeriSign

I would just add that, regardless of what the market price for the technology, the servers, et cetera, that we need to acquire in the operation of our mission, we will simply make that investment and acquire the equipment that we need without hesitation.

Operator

We'll take our last question from Rob Oliver with Baird.

Rob Oliver
Rob Oliver
Senior Research Analyst at Baird

Great. Thanks, guys. Sorry, I just had one more. John, for you, I know you guys talked about the price increase you guys have coming up in November. Jim mentioned it earlier, alluding to the potential for kind of pull-forward ahead. As you look out at that price increase, is there anything different or how you're thinking about the revenue flow-through from those price increases? Occasionally we get questions on how, if at all, it differs. We think we've got it pretty well modeled, but just wanted to see if there's any difference or anything you can point to, which would be helpful. Thanks.

John Calys
John Calys
EVP and CFO at VeriSign

Yeah, sure, Rob. It's important to remember that, while our customers pay at the time of registration, our revenue recognition is done ratably over the life of the domain name subscription. If they subscribe for one year, we recognize the revenue from that payment up front over the next 12 months. When you think about the price increase that goes into effect on November 1st, a domain name that renews on October 30th, let's say, it's October 30, 2027, before we start to realize any price increase. It flows through revenue in the following year after that renewal. You could really think about the price increase as it relates to our existing base takes two years to really flow through revenue completely. In some cases longer, because we do have some names that are registered for longer than one year.

John Calys
John Calys
EVP and CFO at VeriSign

It's a relatively small percentage. Think about it as it takes about a two-year period. Our own modeling, if this helps you a little bit, or helps others, is we would expect about 50% of November's 7% price increase on .com to be recognized in 2027 revenues. The rest of it would be 2028 and a little bit beyond for the longer-term subscription periods.

Rob Oliver
Rob Oliver
Senior Research Analyst at Baird

Okay, really helpful. Just while I've got you, John, just a follow-up to Ygal's question earlier, just on the .web, I think it was his .web ramp costs. I think it was your predecessor who had said at one point that, hey, if we ended up getting .web years ago, earlier in the year, that there may be some additional costs. I just want to clarify, what we heard from you is that those costs are factored into your guidance for this year and not something that as this period ramps, we will see incremental. Just wanted to clarify. Thanks.

John Calys
John Calys
EVP and CFO at VeriSign

That's correct, Rob. Any costs that we might incur this year, as Jim mentioned, are probably not large, but they are factored in to our guidance.

Rob Oliver
Rob Oliver
Senior Research Analyst at Baird

Okay. Thanks again, guys. Appreciate it.

John Calys
John Calys
EVP and CFO at VeriSign

Thank you.

Operator

I'll turn the call back over to David Atchley for final comments.

David Atchley
David Atchley
VP of Investor Relations and Corporate Treasurer at VeriSign

Thank you, operator. Please call the investor relations department with any follow-up questions from this call. Thank you for your participation. This concludes our call. Have a good evening.

Operator

This does conclude our call today. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

Executives
    • David Atchley
      David Atchley
      VP of Investor Relations and Corporate Treasurer
    • Jim Bidzos
      Jim Bidzos
      Executive Chairman, President, and CEO
    • John Calys
      John Calys
      EVP and CFO
Analysts
    • Rob Oliver
      Senior Research Analyst at Baird
    • Ygal Arounian
      Analyst at Wedbush
    • Jamesmichael Sherman-Lewis
      Analyst at Citi
    • Alexei Gogolev
      Analyst at JPMorgan
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