VeriSign, Inc.

Recording of this call is not permitted unless pre-authorized. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. David Atchley, Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Treasurer. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Operator. Welcome to VeriSign's third quarter 2022 earnings call. Joining me are Jim Bidzos, Executive Chairman and CEO, Todd Strube, President and COO, and George Kilgus, Executive Vice President and CFO. This call and presentation are being webcast from the Investor Relations website, which is available under About VeriSign on VeriSign.com. There you will also find our earnings release. At the end of this call, the presentation will be available on that site, and within a few hours, the replay of the call will be posted. Financial results in our earnings release are unaudited, and our remarks include forward-looking statements that are subject to the risks and uncertainties that we discuss in detail in our documents filed with the SEC, specifically the most recent report on Form 10-K. VeriSign does not update financial performance or guidance during the quarter unless it is done through a public disclosure. The financial results in today's call and the matters we will be discussing today include gap results and two non-gap measures used by VeriSign, adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow. Gap-to-non-gap reconciliation information is appended to the slide presentation, which can be found on the investor relations section of our website, available after this call. Jim and George will provide some prepared remarks, and afterward, we will open the call for your questions. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Jim. Thanks, David.

Good afternoon to everyone, and thank you for joining us. Last quarter, we acknowledged the uncertainty that macroeconomic and other challenges presented and we said that we would focus on what was within our ability to control. We also indicated what that meant. First, maintaining, operating, and investing in our critical infrastructure. Next, exercising careful expense control where appropriate. Additionally, it meant keeping our capital allocation activities focused on building and efficiently returning long-term shareholder value. During the third quarter, we extended our record of uninterrupted DNS availability for .com and .net to over 25 years. Also, during the third quarter, we grew our revenues by 6.8% year-over-year and our EPS by 12.9% year-over-year. Our financial and liquidity position remains stable, with $980 million in cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities at the end of the quarter. During the third quarter, we repurchased 1.5 million shares for $275 million. Effective today, the Board of Directors has increased the amount authorized for share repurchase of AirSign common stock by approximately $803 million to a total of $1 billion authorized and available under the share repurchase program, which has no expiration. At the end of September, the domain name base in .com and .net totals 174.2 million domain names with a year-over-year growth rate of 1.2%. In the third quarter, there were 9.9 million new registrations compared to 10.1 million last quarter and 10.7 million in the year-ago quarter. And while there are many factors that drive demand for domain names, we have seen lower new registrations in the first three quarters of this year as a result of factors that I have already mentioned in prior calls. These include a pandemic-driven acceleration of new registrations in 2020 and 2021, which have subsided, recent global macroeconomic headwinds, and reduced new registrations from China. We believe that the renewal rate for the third quarter of 2022 will be approximately 73.8%, same as the 73.8% final renewal rate last quarter, which compares to 75% a year ago. The renewal rate for previously renewed names has remained similar year over year, and the first time renewal rates, while similar to last quarter, are lower year over year, predominantly due to a greater proportion of names renewing from China that were registered last year. We do see some signs that new registrations, while still slow, continue to stabilize towards pre-pandemic levels. That said, current global economic and geopolitical conditions continue to introduce uncertainty through the remainder of 2022. Because of this macro uncertainty, we are adjusting our 2022 domain name-based guidance and now expect a domain name-based growth rate of between 0.25% and 1%. Turning to .web, the parties made their submissions to ICANN during Q3, and we are now waiting for ICANN to complete its process. Now I'd like to turn a call over to George. I'll return when George has completed his financial report with closing remarks.