Fortune
1000 Domain Registrations:
An Alternative Perspective on Registrar Market Share
[ Overview - Data & Results - Summary Statistics - Policy Implications - Motivation ]
Update
This work has been updated and superceded by the author's subsequent "Alternative Perspectives on Registrar Market Share: Fortune 1000, the Forbes International 500, and the Yahoo Directory."
Since the 1999 introduction of competitive registration of domain names, analysts have examined the market share of the various registrars now able to offer registrations in the gTLDs of .COM, .NET, and .ORG. Initially Network Solutions (subsequently bought by Verisign) served the entire market as the sole supplier of such domain names, but competitive registrars have subsequently come to have substantial market share. Continued work by State of the Domain and others documents registrar market share as measured as a proportion of domain names; the work described here offers an alternative perspective via the primary domain registrations of Fortune 1000 companies. Analysis shows a clear divergence: While Verisign's market share across all COM, NET, and ORG registrations has fallen to 39.1%, its market share among the primary domains of Fortune 1000 companies remains 83.4%.
Although the primary domains of Fortune 1000 companies represent a very small sample of all gTLD domain registrations, these major corporate registrations may represent a disproportionate share of registrar profits. The domain registration market is currently alleged by some to be undergoing a shake-out among registrars, with certain registrars buying others and with business thought to be in a temporary or even long-term downturn. In this context, registrations by major corporate customers are of particular interest since the per-domain fees paid by these customers are, it is thought, often substantially higher than the fees paid by individuals, small businesses, and speculators.
In recent research, I have documented the registrars used by the primary domains of each of the Fortune 1000 companies and have compared their chosen registrars with the registrars used by a broader cross-section of the market.
In recent testing and archiving, I have extracted a list of 992 distinct domains used by 995 of the Fortune 1000 companies. Five companies had no web sites of record, as reported in the Fortune 1000 listings, while the Fortune listings reported that a few companies share the domains of their primary web sites. (For example, Fortune reports that Aid Association for Lutherans (#475) and Lutheran Brotherhood (#537) both use aal.org as their primary domain name.)
For each domain, I have used Verisign Global Registry Services's WHOIS service to obtain the registrar of record as of May 22, 2002. The resulting raw data is available here:
I have tabulated the Fortune 1000 domains by registrar to determine the number of domains registered to each registrar. I have also split the list as between the first 500 companies ("The Fortune 500") and the 501-1000th ranked firms (completing "The Fortune 1000"). The "Overall" column of data comes from the Q1 2002 "State of the Domain" newsletter (available from Snapnames) and reflects registrar market share across all COM, NET, and ORG registrations.
| Registrar | Fortune 500 | Fortune 501-1000 | Fortune 1000 | Overall | ||||
| Number | Percent | Number | Percent | Number | Percent | Percent | ||
| Network Solutions, Inc. |
403
|
80.8%
|
427
|
86.1%
|
830
|
83.4%
|
39.10%
|
|
| Register.com, Inc. |
56
|
11.2%
|
33
|
6.7%
|
89
|
8.9%
|
10.01%
|
|
| Alldomains.com Inc. |
9
|
1.8%
|
9
|
1.8%
|
18
|
1.8%
|
0.25%
|
|
| Tucows, Inc. |
6
|
1.2%
|
4
|
0.8%
|
10
|
1.0%
|
9.85%
|
|
| Bulkregister.com, Inc. |
4
|
0.8%
|
5
|
1.0%
|
9
|
0.9%
|
5.39%
|
|
| Nameengine, Inc. |
5
|
1.0%
|
2
|
0.4%
|
7
|
0.7%
|
0.02%
|
|
| Domaindiscover |
3
|
0.6%
|
2
|
0.4%
|
5
|
0.5%
|
1.34%
|
|
| Emarkmonitor Inc. Dba markmonitor |
4
|
0.8%
|
1
|
0.2%
|
5
|
0.5%
|
<0.01%
|
|
| Corporate Domains, Inc. |
2
|
0.4%
|
1
|
0.2%
|
3
|
0.3%
|
0.01%
|
|
| Intercosmos Media Group,inc |
0
|
0.0%
|
3
|
0.6%
|
3
|
0.3%
|
1.73%
|
|
| Dotster, Inc. |
0
|
0.0%
|
2
|
0.4%
|
2
|
0.2%
|
1.87%
|
|
| Enom, Inc. |
1
|
0.2%
|
1
|
0.2%
|
2
|
0.2%
|
2.63%
|
|
| 1 enameco. |
1
|
0.2%
|
0
|
0.0%
|
1
|
0.1%
|
0.06%
|
|
| 123 Registration, Inc. |
1
|
0.2%
|
0
|
0.0%
|
1
|
0.1%
|
0.01%
|
|
| 1stdomain.net, Division of G+D International LLC |
0
|
0.0%
|
1
|
0.2%
|
1
|
0.1%
|
0.05%
|
|
| America Online, Inc. Dba AOL and/or Compuserve-AOL |
1
|
0.2%
|
0
|
0.0%
|
1
|
0.1%
|
0.01%
|
|
| CORE Internet Council of Registrars |
0
|
0.0%
|
1
|
0.2%
|
1
|
0.1%
|
2.27%
|
|
| Domain Bank, Inc. |
0
|
0.0%
|
1
|
0.2%
|
1
|
0.1%
|
0.79%
|
|
| Domainpeople, Inc. |
1
|
0.2%
|
0
|
0.0%
|
1
|
0.1%
|
0.47%
|
|
| G.k. Group, l.l.c. |
1
|
0.2%
|
0
|
0.0%
|
1
|
0.1%
|
0.29%
|
|
| Go Daddy Software, Inc. |
0
|
0.0%
|
1
|
0.2%
|
1
|
0.1%
|
2.61%
|
|
| Interaccess co. |
0
|
0.0%
|
1
|
0.2%
|
1
|
0.1%
|
0.01%
|
|
| Melbourne IT, ltd. D/b/a Internet Names Worldwide |
0
|
0.0%
|
1
|
0.2%
|
1
|
0.1%
|
5.20%
|
|
| Netbenefit PLC aka Netnames |
1
|
0.2%
|
0
|
0.0%
|
1
|
0.1%
|
0.08%
|
|
|
499
|
496
|
995
|
||||||
This data is graphically summarized in chart form:
Verisign continues to be the largest registrar in COM, NET, and ORG, both among Fortune 1000 companies and among registrants generally. However, Verisign's share of registrations is more than twice as high among the Fortune 1000 than it is among registrations generally (80.8% versus 39.1%).
For primary registrations by Fortune 500 firms, Register.com has a market share approximately equal to its share among all COM, NET, and ORG registrants. Interestingly, Register.com's share among Fortune 500 companies (11.2%) is greater than its share among the firms ranked 501 through 1000 by Fortune (6.7%). It is unknown whether this result is spurious, the result of deliberate marketing efforts by Register.com, or the result of a relative preference among Fortune 501-1000 firms for Register.com's service.
No other single registrar serves more than 2% of the Fortune 1000 domains examined. However, some of the registrars serving the Fortune 1000 serve significantly more Fortune customers than their overall registration counts would suggest. For example, Alldomains.com serves only 0.25% of all COM, NET, and ORG domain registrations, but it serves fully 1.8% of Fortune 1000 firms. Though shares are smaller for other firms, both Nameengine and Emarkmonitor also serve disproportionately more Fortune firms than their ordinary registration shares would have predicted. While these results may be spurious, the services offered by these registrars suggest that their market share among Fortune firms may precisely reflect availability of certain premium services (monitoring, etc.) of particular interest to large corporate customers.
Tucows and Bulkregister are notable, among large registrars, for showing the reverse effect; they have, respectively, fully 9.85% and 5.39% of COM, NET, and ORG registrations but only 1% and 0.9% of Fortune 1000 registrations.
Future Work, Discussion, and Policy Implications
The work described here discusses only the primary domains used by Fortune 1000 firms, as reported by Fortune magazine. Most Fortune firms likely have multiple domain registrations, and it would be desirable to examine trends in these registrations. For example, examining this data would make it possible to determine whether Verisign continues to maintain notably high market share among Fortune firms' additional domain names, or whether its 80%+ market share is limited to Fortune firms' primary domain names. Indeed, fearing some glitch or errata during transition, firms may hesitate to transfer their key domains between registrars; if primary domain names were by and large registered before competition was introduced to gTLD domain registration, but additional Fortune domain names were registered thereafter, examining this additional data might reveal that in fact certain corporate customers have switched to other providers of domain registration services. From this perspective, a reader might then remark not on Verisign's high market share (relative to its baseline of 39% among all registrations) but instead on its low market share (relative to the 100% of domains it had registered prior to 1999).
In the context of a possible "shakeout" among registrars, as suggested by Snapnames among others, it is desirable to assess the financial security of registrars. Fortune 1000 registrations are but a small portion of domains and of registrar profits. However, a registrar with many Fortune accounts paying significant registration fees might be better able to weather a downturn than a registrar without such clients. Further research might attempt to quantify a wider notion of a registrar's "premium customers" and subsequently examine which registrars have the most such customers. In the short run, this analysis suggests that while, for example, Emarkmonitor may be a small registrar, with less than 0.01% of all registrations, it might nonetheless be a commercially viable operation thanks to a sizable number of major corporate clients.
The purpose of this work is primarily academic -- to document the registrations at issue for the benefit of those who seek to make policy decisions on related matters. For example, in the context of fears that certain registrars may be at risk of bankruptcy or insolvency, it is of interest to know which firms have the corporate clients perhaps most likely to assure strong finances going forward. While this data cannot fully answer such questions, it is a first step towards addressing them.