Verisign, Inc. (NASDAQ: VRSN) stock fell 0.8% on 26th July, 2019 (As of 12:43 pm GMT-4 ; Source: Google finance) as the company posted better than expected earnings for the second quarter of FY 19. Net income totaled $148 million compared to $128 million a year earlier. As of June 30th, 2019, the company maintained total assets of $1.9 billion and total liabilities of $3.3 billion. Assets included $1.2 billion of cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities, of which $582 million were held domestically with the remainder held abroad.
Moreover, the operating cash flow for the second quarter was $165 million and free cash flow was $154 million compared with $202 million and $191 million respectively for the second quarter last year. The year-over-year decline was a result of the timing of cash tax payments, which were predominantly made in Q1 last year versus occurring in the second quarter this year.
VRSN in the second quarter of FY 19 has reported the adjusted earnings per share of $1.33, beating the analysts’ estimates for the adjusted earnings per share by 4 cents. Second-quarter GAAP results produced revenue of $306 million, up 1.3% year-over-year. Operating expense totaled $105 million compared to $106 million last quarter and $109 million in the second quarter a year ago. Operating income totaled $202 million compared with $193 million in the second quarter of 2018. The operating margin in the quarter came to 65.9% compared to 63.8% in the same quarter a year ago.
At the end of June, the domain name base in dot-com and dot-net totaled 156.1 million, consisting of 142.5 million names for dot-com and 13.6 million names for dot-net with a year-over-year growth rate of 4.3%. During the second quarter, VRSN had processed 10.3 million new registrations, and the domain name base increased by 1.34 million names. Although renewal rates are not fully measurable until 45 days after the end of the quarter, the company believe that the renewal rate for the second quarter of 2019 will be approximately 74%. This preliminary rate compares to 75% achieved in the second quarter of 2018.
For 2019 full year, the company expects the domain name base growth rate to be between 3% and 4.25% narrowed from the previous range of 2.5% to 4.25%. For FY 19, revenue is now expected to be in the range of $1.225 billion to $1.235 billion, narrowed from the $1.220 billion to $1.235 billion range provided previously.