Hosting growth was strong on both sides of the Atlantic in 2003, with European providers keeping pace with American hosts in both percentage growth and hostname growth. Over 17 companies with greater than 50K hostnames in January 2003 had greater than 50% growth, with six of these in Europe.

It was a banner year for hosting companies based in Germany, home to the fastest-growing host and three of the top six in hostname growth. Leading the pace was IP Exchange GmbH, which lived up to its motto ("where the server lives") with 352 percent growth in hostnames on the year.

The top American performers demonstrated that there were successful growth strategies in virtually every market niche, including colocation (Hurricane Electric), dedicated servers (EV1Servers), shared hosting (iPowerWeb), small business e-commerce hosting (Yahoo!) and domain registration and hosting (Go Daddy).

Top Hosting Companies By Percentage Growth, Dec 02 to Dec 03 Hosting Company Dec 02 Dec 03 % Growth Growth Primary Region IP Exchange GmbH 61,955 280,072 352.06% 218,117 Europe Hurricane Electric 64,955 194,097 198.82% 129,142 America iPowerWeb 55,802 165,489 196.56% 109,687 America GoDaddy Inc 578,838 1,635,676 182.58% 1,056,838 America EV1Servers.net 218,565 596,372 172.86% 377,807 America net@ccess 89,810 187,765 109.07% 97,955 America Agarik/Amen 54,290 110,992 104.44% 56,702 Europe yahoo.com 277,306 542,687 95.70% 265,381 America Hostway Corporation 176,580 336,594 90.62% 160,014 Worldwide BurstNet 50,090 90,869 81.41% 40,779 America Colt 94,555 169,144 78.88% 74,589 Europe Domain Factory 65,274 110,946 69.97% 45,672 Europe Peer1 Networks Inc 98,068 164,354 67.59% 66,286 America Datapipe 76,334 122,298 60.21% 45,964 America Proxad 56,912 88,335 55.21% 31,423 Europe Aruba 112,435 170,065 51.26% 57,630 Europe

When looking at growth by total number of hostnames, rather than percentage growth, European hosting companies fare even better, with 5 of the top 10 top performers located in Europe. This reflects the figures as a whole, with 42 percent of the 46 million sites worldwide hosted in Europe. While 1&1 Internet didn't make the top percentage gains, it solidifed its status as the largest hosting company, adding more than 800,000 hostnames to top 3.5 million.

While the industry consolidation continued in 2003, both charts are dominated by companies that have grown organically, rather than through acquisition sprees. Some of the most energetic "consolidators" of recent years are conspicuous by their absence, and focused on integrating or even unwinding earlier purchases.

The other clear trend was the power of price, as the top three performers each featured low price points as a core strategy. Go Daddy's $8.95 pricing on domains and expansion into shared hosting helped it add more than a million hostnames on the year.

Top Hosting Companies By Growth in Hostnames, Dec 02 to Dec 03 Hosting Company Dec 02 Dec 03 % Growth Growth Primary Region Go Daddy 578,838 1,635,676 182.58% 1,056,838 Americas 1&1 Internet AG 2,700,865 3,504,704 29.76% 803,839 Europe EV1Servers.net 218,565 596,372 172.86% 377,807 Americas yahoo.com 277,306 542,687 95.70% 265,381 Americas Strato AG 1,665,945 1,918,835 15.18% 252,890 Europe IP Exchange GmbH 61,955 280,072 352.06% 218,117 Europe Hostway Corporation 176,580 336,594 90.62% 160,014 Worldwide Host Europe 388,765 544,879 40.16% 156,114 Europe Hurricane Electric 64,955 194,097 198.82% 129,142 Americas iPowerWeb 55,802 165,489 196.56% 109,687 Americas

Our Hosting Provider Switching Analysis identifies movements of sites from one hosting provider to another. The analysis is updated monthly and is available on a company license basis.