Verio, a subsidiary of NTT Communications and a leading provider of global Internet Protocol (IP) solutions, continues its leadership position in the Web hosting market, according to a recent report released by consulting firm Tier 1 Research. The report analyzes the shared and low-end dedicated hosting markets, and recognizes Verio for leading virtually all industry categories measured, including number of total customers, domains hosted, shared servers under management, and shared and total revenue.

“While continuing to intelligently expand its position in the enterprise space, Verio has clearly maintained its focus on this marketplace and has strengthened its position as a leader,” said Joshua Beil, vice president of research and development for Tier 1 Research. “The ‘mass market’ of hosting--shared and low-end dedicated--affords a tremendous opportunity for providers based on its sheer size.”

Verio ranked in the top three in total number of managed servers, which includes the number of shared and low-end dedicated servers. Tier 1 Research also noted that Verio has the highest revenue per server unit (ARPU) in the low-end dedicated hosting market share.

Tier 1 Research based the market share rankings on current available data, industry research and revenue estimates for 2002.

“Clearly our growth plans, coupled with group’s focus on serving the small to medium enterprise customer (SME), have yielded some great results,” said Doug Schneider, president of Verio’s SME Hosting business unit. “The small to medium enterprise hosting market represents one important part of the overall Verio business and continues to offer growth opportunities that are in line with our strategy for this segment. The rankings conducted by Tier 1 Research confirms our leadership position and staying power in this industry and affirms our commitment to serving the SME customer,” he added.

About Tier 1 Research
Tier 1 Research, pioneer of the “Sector Information eXchange,” is a specialized research and consulting firm combining financial and strategic analysis of public and private companies in the Internet Infrastructure Software and Services industry. A key hallmark of the company is its independence enabling unbiased research and competitive analysis for all audiences with an interest in the managed hosting, storage, content delivery, and various emerging software and solution vendors for the outsourced and enterprise data center markets. Tier 1 Research works with institutional investors, venture capital firms and companies as an outsourced competitive analysis team with a broad range of services. For more information on other reports from Tier 1 Research or to find out about some of the other services we provide such as the widely read daily newsletter, please visit our web site at www.tier1research.com.

About Verio
Verio Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of NTT Communications (NTT Com), which provides long distance and international telecommunications reaching over 200 countries worldwide. Verio is the world's largest operator of Web sites for businesses and a leading provider of global IP solutions. NTT Com and Verio market their global IP solutions under the NTT/VERIO brand. The company offers businesses a broad range of Internet services, including Web hosting, dedicated access, virtual private networks, and managed service offerings, among other enhanced services. Verio supports its operations with highly reliable and scalable global infrastructure and systems including the NTT/VERIO Global IP Network, and provides Web hosting services to customers in more than 170 countries. The combination of Verio and NTT Com offers services to meet the growing and diverse needs of all businesses, including small to medium businesses, large global enterprises and multi-national corporations. More information can be found at www.verio.com and www.ntt.com/index-e.html