VeriSign, Inc. ( NASDAQ : VRSN ), announced financial results for the fourth quarter of 2012 and year ended Dec. 31, 2012 today after the market closed and had a very nice year.

VeriSign, Inc. reported revenue of $230 million for the fourth quarter of 2012, up 13 % from the same quarter in 2011.

Verisign reported net income of $106 million and diluted earnings per share (EPS) of $0.65 for the fourth quarter of 2012, compared to net income of $54 million and diluted EPS of $0.34 for the same quarter in 2011.

The operating margin was a staggering  58.8% for the fourth quarter of 2012 compared to 45.6% for the same quarter in 2011.

Verisign ended the fourth quarter of 2012 with Cash, Cash Equivalents, Marketable Securities and Restricted Cash of $1.56 billion, an increase of $211 million from year-end 2011.

Verisign Registry Services added 1.25 million net new names and ended the fourth quarter with 121.1 million active domain names in the zone for .com and .net, representing a 6.4 percent increase year over year.

Verisign processed 8.0 million and 33.1 million new domain name registrations for .com and .net, representing 0.9 percent and 3.0 percent increase year over year, in the fourth quarter and full year 2012 periods, respectively.

Thank god the Department of Commerce stopped the 7% annual increase Verisign got under the previous contract to operate the .com registry.

I’m not a stock analysis but I would say a 60% profit margin for a publicly traded company is very rare.