GoDaddy is an extremely well known name when it comes to the web hosting market in America, however when it comes to the international market there are a lot of players with a significantly larger presence. To help fix this, GoDaddy has acquired Host Europe Group – a leading managed hosting provider in Europe & Germany. The final purchase came in at €1.69 billion (US$1.79 billion) – and is fully expected to go through in the second quarter of 2017.
“The acquisition of Host Europe Group signals GoDaddy’s prioritization of growth in markets outside the US and gives it a solid foothold in two of Europe’s biggest markets: Germany and the U.K.,” Philbert Shih, managing director of Structure Research told The WHIR. “The SMB-focused hosting market continues to mature and with maturity comes the need to access new market opportunities. Extending geographical scope is one obvious way of doing this and GoDaddy has decided to try and accelerate that through M&A.”
As far as all the services go for HEG’s current 1.7+ million customer base, GoDaddy plans to continue the operation of all services and brands, 123Reg, Domain Factory, Heart Internet and Host Europe.
HEG Group CEO Patrick Pulvermüller will lead the company’s combined European operations, and report to Andrew Low Ah Kee, GoDaddy’s Executive Vice President of International.
“In combining with GoDaddy, we see a remarkable opportunity for our customers, partners and the small business ecosystem in Europe,” Pulvermüller said. “What stands out is the strategic alignment of the companies – we’re both driven to empower people to transform their ideas and bring them to life online. Together GoDaddy and HEG will provide even more value for our customers and introduce new solutions to help their ventures succeed.”