The internet grew by nearly 153 million domain names in 2007, according to the latest Domain Name Industry Brief (PDF) from VeriSign.

The base of domain name registrations grew 27 per cent in the last quarter of 2007 compared with the fourth quarter of 2006, and five per cent over the third quarter of 2007.

Taking into account domain names deleted by registrants in the five-day grace period before the end of 2007, the .com and .net base grew by 15.4 million over the entire year surpassing 80.4 million domain name registrations.

Country code top level domain name registrations totalled more than 58 million, a 33 per cent increase from 2006, but the composition of the domain name industry and rank order in terms of base size remained relatively constant.

The report also highlighted the importance of Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6), the successor to IPv4.

VeriSign said that IPv6 offers significant improvements over the current protocol, particularly the ability to enable a larger address space and provide greater flexibility in assigning addresses.

"The widespread adoption of internet-enabled wireless devices and gaming consoles has created a growing demand for larger IP address space," said Raynor Dahlquist, senior vice president of naming services at VeriSign.

Dahlquist added that VeriSign has already taken steps to "ensure that developing global infrastructures will have sufficient IP address space to innovate, enhance the end-to-end connectivity for IPv6 networks and facilitate richer use of DNS".