Web Hosting in the Third World

Web hosting is a competitive business with, literally, 10’s of thousands of web hosting companies worldwide. The majority of all web hosts focus their efforts on North America and Western Europe. There is some focus on Asia with their internet boom.

But Africa, South America, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East are prime burgeoning areas that receive little focus from the major web hosting companies. Over the next 10 years we see tremendous growth in these markets, and some savvy web hosting companies can ensure great long term growth potential by establishing their brands in these markets.

The United States and other industrialized countries are very attractive to customers in these developing areas because of the established infrastructures, datacenters, and established base of skilled computer workers. Trying to start a world class datacenter in Ghana, for example, has huge hurdles. Just transferring money in and out of the country is a laborious process that includes government approval for any cash transfer.

Another factor is the major credit card companies. They do not issue cards to customers in places like Ghana or Tanzania. For a web host to manage customers from these countries they cannot have auto-billing. Establishing a US brand there might be worth the extra headaches because you already have an advantage over local businesses with infrastructure and billing systems.

But other countries like India, Brazil, and Russia offer huge markets today. With growing middle classes these countries have established banking systems  to facilitate credit card transactions. They also have a growing number of small businesses and a middle classes with internet access.

These are 2 prime target audiences for new web hosting customers. Establishing you brand in Brazil, for instance, can yield a large customer base over the next decade as this country continues to grow its internet access, middle class and overall population. Doing business there is as easy as it is in the US from a web host’s perspective.

India is the obvious country but with their huge IT trained workforce and outsourcing industry for web hosting support, they will not yield customers as easily. They already have some of the best datacenters and web hosting support staffs in the world. Not surprisingly some web hosting companies from India are becoming very large. This being said, India does have a population of 1 billion people. That is over 3 times the population of the US. So, there is still a lot of room for web hosting companies to gain market share.

As competition continues to increase in North America, these other areas like South America, Africa, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East will continue to provide plenty of growth potential. Developing a marketing and branding strategy now in these areas can payoff greatly so they continue toward industrialization and the first world.