VeriSign, Inc.

Good day, everyone. Welcome to VeriSign's first quarter 2026 earnings call. Today's conference is being recorded. Recording of this call is not permitted unless pre-authorized. At this time, I'd 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 first quarter 2026 earnings call. Joining me are Jim Bidzos, Executive Chairman, President, and CEO, and John Callis, 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 reports on Form 10-K and 10-Q. 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 GAAP results and two non-GAAP measures used by VeriSign, adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow. GAAP to non-GAAP 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 John 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. Thank you, David.

Good afternoon to everyone, and thank you for joining us. We're pleased to report that VeriSign delivered strong results in the first quarter of 2026, both operationally and financially. The combined .com and .net domain name base is now at a record 176.1 million names. New registrations are the largest we have seen since the first half of 2021, combined with very strong renewal rates. On a financial side, revenue is up 6.6% year over year, and EPS increased 11.4% year-over-year. After seeing to the needs of our operations, we returned over 100% of our free cash flow to the investing public in the last 12 months for a total of $1.13 billion through share repurchases and dividends. Our financial and liquidity position remains stable with $556 million in cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities at the end of the quarter. Also at quarter end, there was $863 million remaining available under our current share repurchase program, which has no expiration. As announced in today's earnings release, VeriSign's Board of Directors approved a cash dividend of $0.81 per share of VeriSign's outstanding common stock to stockholders of record as of the close of business on May 19, 2026, payable on May 27, 2026. VeriSign intends to continue to pay a cash dividend on a quarterly basis subject to market conditions and approval by VeriSign's Board of Directors. VeriSign's performance in the first quarter shows sustained demand for domain names. During the quarter, the domain name base for .com and .net grew 2.54 million from year-end 2025. New registrations for the first quarter were 11.5 million compared with 10.7 million last quarter and 10.1 million for the first quarter of last year. The renewal rate for the first quarter of 2026 is expected to be 76.3% compared to 75.5% a year ago. The positive domain name-based trends of 2025 have continued to build strength to start 2026. We saw growth across our three main regions, with most of the strength coming from the U.S. and EMEA. It is clear to us that end users are seeing value in domain names and the domain name system as evidenced by our strong domain name metrics and the increasing reliance on our infrastructure. We see ongoing registrar focus on customer acquisition and engagement with our marketing programs. Also, we see a positive impact from AI tools, which make content and website creation faster and easier. With the trends we've observed thus far in 2026 and our expectations for the next three quarters, we are increasing and narrowing our guidance for domain name-based growth to be between 3.1 and 4.3% for 2026. As a reminder, you can monitor the progression of the domain name base on our website, which is updated daily. As announced in today's earnings release, we have given notice of a price increase of 71 cents to the annual wholesale price for .com domain names, which raises the wholesale price from $10.26 to $10.97, effective November 1, 2026. Even after this increase, we believe Com will remain highly competitive with other TLD choices. I would note that this is the first allowable price increase since the notice two years ago in February 2024 of a 67-cent increase. As a reminder, VeriSign is prohibited from selling dot-com registrations to retail buyers. We may only sell to accredited registrars and only at a capped regulated price. The new $10.97 price that will become effective November 1st is the maximum price that we can charge registrars. The registrars, however, are entirely price unrestricted and can sell dot-com registrations at any retail price they choose, and those prices often differ significantly from the price we are limited to. Now I'd like to turn the call over to John. I will return when John has completed his financial report with closing remarks. John?