James Bidzos
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at VeriSign
Thank you, David. Good afternoon to everyone and thank you for joining us. As global reliance on online services continues to increase, so does the importance of delivering uninterrupted and accurate DNS resolution. Last week we crossed a significant milestone by marking 25 years of uninterrupted uptime for the.com/.net domain name resolution system. Reaching this quarter century mark is a testament to the ongoing investments made in our platforms, processes and people.
During the second quarter we grew our revenues by 6.8% year-over-year and our EPS by 17% year-over-year. At the end of June the domain name base and.com and.net totaled 174.3 million domain names consisting of 161.1 million names for.com and 13.2 million names for.net with a year-over-year growth rate of 2.2% and a sequential decrease of 354,000 domain names.
The final renewal rate for the first quarter of 2022 was 75.9% compared to 76.0% for the same quarter of 2021. Although renewal rates are not fully measurable until 45 days after the end of the quarter, we believe that the renewal rate for the second quarter of 2022 will be approximately 73.6%. This preliminary renewal rate compares to 75.4% achieved in the second quarter of 2021 and 75.9% last quarter. The decline in the second quarter of preliminary renewal rate is primarily related to the proportion of names renewing from China registered in the year ago quarter which weighed on first time renewal rates.
We do see continued strength in the renewal rates of previously renewed names. In the second quarter we processed 10.1 million new registrations compared to 10.2 million last quarter and 11.7 million in the year ago quarter. While there are many factors that drive demand for domain names, we have seen lower new units in the first half of this year as a result of the few factors that I will now mention. These include a pandemic driven acceleration of domain name registrations in 2020 and 2021 which has subsided, recent global macroeconomic headwinds and relative weakness in 2022 registrations from China. While we're still early in Q3, we do see some signs with new registrations are stabilizing and we continue to see strong renewal rates. However, we agree with the consensus view that the current economic conditions are likely to prevail through 2022 and possibly beyond.
Therefore, we're adjusting our 2022 domain guidance and now expect a domain name base growth rate of between 0.5% and 1.5%. This range reflects our expectations that new registrations in Q3 and Q4 will be roughly similar to the levels we saw in the first half of 2022 and which are similar to pre-pandemic levels. This range also reflects our expectations for an improving renewal rate from the preliminary renewal rate we are seeing in Q2.
As announced in today's earnings release, we have given notice of a price increase of $0.90 to the annual wholesale price for.net domain names which will raise the price from $9.2 to $90.92 effective February 1st, 2023. Our financial and liquidity position remained stable with $997 million in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities at the end of the quarter. During the second quarter, we repurchase 2 million shares for $349 million. At quarter end $543 million remained available and authorized under the current share repurchase program which has no expiration. We continually evaluate the overall liquidity and investing needs of the business and consider the best uses for our cash, including potential share repurchases.
Turning to.web as we noted in our last call, ICANN's Board directed one of its standing committees to review the independent review process panel's final decision and provide the Board with its findings. The committee then asked the parties to submit written summaries of their claims by July 29th, that's tomorrow and then to submit responses by August 29th. We expect that the committee will conduct its review based on these submissions and will then provide its findings to the ICANN Board.
Now, I'd like to turn the call over to George. I will return when George has completed his financial report with closing remarks, including more about our areas of focus going forward. George?