So VeriSign released its Q4 2008 Domain Name Industry Brief (PDF) yesterday, a document that zooms in on "the state of the domain name industry through a variety of statistical and analytical research". Let's take a look at their findings and stats. As you could have deducted from the headline, last year ended with a total base of 177 million domain name registrations across all of the Top Level Domains (TLDs), up from 153 million at the end of 2007 representing a 16% growth rate. Over the entire year, there was an average of 11.9 million new domain names registered per quarter compared to an average of 12.2 million new domain names registered each quarter in 2007. Last quarter, like Q3 2008, the five largest TLDs in terms of overall size were .com, .cn (China), .de (Germany), .net, and .org. The overall base of .com and .net domain names grew to 90.4 million domain names at the end of 2008.

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