Namecheap announced that it published its 2025 Domain Insights & Trends Report. The report analyzes its data to offer a look at how domain name usage, registrations, and buyer behavior continue to evolve over the last year. The report pulls from Namecheap’s internal data coupled with broader market observations.

While the report focused on data from last year, it also shared some insights into the current year and what the company expects on the horizon. For instance, the company shared the following insight about some of the extensions that are seeing growth:

This morning, I shared that Namecheap Founder Richard Kirkendall stepped down as CEO of Namecheap following the company’s acquisition. I noticed this when he transitioned off of the @NamecheapCEO account on X and he is now using the @NamecheapCEO123 account.

Longtime Namecheap COO Hillan Klein was promoted to the role of CEO. In taking over the executive suite, Hillan also took charge of the @NamecheapCEO account on X. His first post was made this afternoon:

Last night, I noticed that Richard Kirkendall no longer had the NamecheapCEO account on X. Instead, his account handle changed to NamecheapCEO123, which I was following. I mentioned this precautionary in the event he had lost control of the account for some reason. Fortunately, the change was intentional.

In a post on X early this morning, Richard shared that he has stepped aside as Namecheap CEO. This change comes in the wake of CVC Capital Partner’s $1.5 billion acquisition of Namecheap. According to Richard, the new CEO of Namecheap is Hillan Klein, who has been the company’s Chief Operating Officer for 12 years.