The gTLD domain industry will be pretty much flat in terms of sales next year, according to the predictions in ICANN’s latest budget.
The bean counters reckon the Org will make $89 million from transactions in legacy gTLDs (mainly .com) in its fiscal 2025, up from the $88.9 million it expects to make in fiscal 2024, which ends next June 30.
Meanwhile, it expects transactions in new gTLDs to bring in $10.1 million, up from the $9.9 million it expects in FY24.
Both of the updated FY24 estimates are actually a bit ahead of ICANN’s current budget, written in April and approved in May, which predicted $87.1 million from legacy and $9.2 million from new.
ICANN expects to lose 22 registries (presumably unused dot-brands, of which there are still plenty, with a couple hundred contracts up for renewal in 2025) and gain 40 new registrars.
This will lead to revenue from registry fixed fees to dip to $27.6 million from a predicted $28.1 million, and registrar fixed fees going up from $10.4 million from a predicted $10.1 million.
The FY24 registrar numbers are a little healthier than ICANN predicted back in April, when it expected 2,447 accredited registrars at the end of the financial year versus the 2,575 it’s expecting now. Gname’s decision to buy 150 new accreditations will have played a big role in moving this number up. ICANN expects 2,615 registrars at the end of FY25.
But ICANN is losing registries faster than it predicted back in April. Then, it had expected to end FY24 with 1,127 registries; now it thinks it will have 1,118. It expects that to drop to 1,089 by the end of June 2025.
Overall, ICANN is budgeting for funding of $148 million and the same level of expenses in FY25, the same as FY24.
The post ICANN predicts flattish 2025 for domain industry first appeared on Domain Incite.
