Domain Stats Show Changing Irish Hosting Business

Over the past few weeks I’ve been working on a historical analysis of the perfomance of Irish hosters. The analysis so far covers Irish hosters from April 2005 to December 2003 and when competed will cover 2005 to 2000. Over that period, the number of Irish hosters has grown dramatically from approximately 500 to over 850. The market has shifted from being one dominated by the early market hosters (the Irish ISPs such as Eircom.net, IOL/Esat, Netsource) to one where the dedicated Hosting Service Providers (HSPs) have taken the major market share. Some of the large Irish HSPs are having growth problems - well not so much growth as the complete lack of it. They have been treading water with monthly increases barely offsetting their domain losses.

Other trends that are only apparent in the long view show Hosting365 dominating the low end of the market for domain name registration in Ireland. But a possible future competitor is emerging in the shape of Web Hosting Ireland - a company that has a very high growth rate over the period. The critical high end of the market is still wide open but some Irish companies such as Host.ie and ISPs seem to be concentrating on this more sustainable section of the market though Hosting365 has a significant market presence through its Rack365.com brand. The report on the Irish Hosting Business should be ready for publication in the next week or so and will be reasonably priced. All sales enquiries to salesdept@whoisireland.com

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Written by John McCormac on April 15th, 2005 with comments disabled.
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4 comments

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Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Tom O’Connor
#1. April 15th, 2005, at 4:23 PM.

“dominating the low end of the market” in your view who would be at the higher end of the market? eircom, esat, are there any high end providers left?

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com John McCormac
#2. April 16th, 2005, at 5:52 AM.

Difficult to say Tom,
Eircom, Esat, and a few others are the high end but I think that the real high-end winners will be the guys with their own infrastructure and expertise. Eircom has been cleaning out the non-paying domains over the last year and they’ve lost a lot of domains as a result. Esat seems to be treading water with minimal growth.

The competition in the high end is beginning to warm up because it is possible for new entrants to the market to get in at a cheaper level now either with their own cabs or with rented space/servers. The big recognisable potential winners on the high end would be H365 and Host.ie. The rules of the low end of the market are somewhat different to the rules of the high end. With the low end it is all about cost and many customers never even use the webspace or domain they’ve registered. With the high end, it is all about trust and reliability. One is a mass market product that people don’t give that much thought to and the other is a product that requires the usual dog and pony show for the sales people and a pile of documentation.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Tom O’Connor
#3. April 18th, 2005, at 12:50 PM.

I would agree with the above, I see on open today you may have upset some people however :)