Is web hosting market saturated?

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Posted by dungho, 07-06-2009, 05:02 AM
Hi all, I am a newbie in web hosting market. However, after googling, I realized that this market has been saturating. Can I have a position when comming to this market? I am a web developer now and finding out a domain in Internet Service which is suitable for me. I want to earn about 2000 pounds/month. Can anyone suggest to me? Many thanks,
Posted by Tristan Perry, 07-06-2009, 05:20 AM
It's possible, and you will pick-up customers despite it being a tough market. Just don't expect to get dozens of customers within the first weeks or months of you being in business. However it'd probably be years before you make £2000/month, but again it's possible. Starting off in hosting can be one of the toughest things.
Posted by dungho, 07-06-2009, 05:27 AM
Thanks! Can I corporate with other resellers for building their own infrastructure? I am a web developer in Vietnam, and want to concerntrate to UK market. I have been the UK for 6 months.
Posted by Tristan Perry, 07-06-2009, 05:31 AM
Anytime Yes, that's quite normal - partnering up or working with a UK host would be beneficial to both of you.
Posted by SSHocker, 07-06-2009, 06:58 AM
You can make money in hosting for sure, just be a bit inventive in how you market your company. Flooding the advertising forum with 20GB space 500GB bandwidth for $5 a month will just make you just another needle in the haystack. Steer clear of affiliate rubbish You're in a good position as a developer .. exploit it!
Posted by VasheyJ, 07-06-2009, 03:39 PM
It is quite possible. Just competitive.
Posted by MikeDVB, 07-06-2009, 03:56 PM
Hello The hosting market is beyond saturated however new hosts enter the market every day. To make it as a new player in the hosting industry you really have to stand out and usually that is done by providing hosting for a certain niche instead of just offering general web hosting. It is going to take you at least a year or two to begin earning that kind of money unless you have a significant source of funds to throw into the business to start out - and even if you do that's no guarantee that you will ever get to that point. Business is risk - without the risk everybody would run their own successful company. I hope my answer has helped you a little.
Posted by njoker555, 07-06-2009, 04:02 PM
different hosts work for different people so even if it is saturation you could give it a go - if you can gather a group of clients and provide them great support then they'll stay with you for a very long time and it's really hard to get 2000 pounds per month in income. You'd have to offer the right services and you'd probably need a good amount of servers if you plan on offering just shared and reseller. And a simple reseller account won't get you that far unless you oversell big time but that'll cause you problems in the future.
Posted by InternetPeru, 07-06-2009, 05:25 PM
really its hard to get money but, its is posible, with new services, innovation within the market, and in My case: "Direct contact" with my clients, and personalized support. like others company.
Posted by TechniSmart, 07-06-2009, 05:43 PM
If you just host your own web design clients and your sites are innovative, you should make money immediately, but not that much. Building on that depends on what kind of business model you decide upon. If you just try and become another run of the mill host, you will find it tough unless you can splash out on marketing. I noticed you said you are from Vietnam and want to focus on the UK market, so I may suggest your command of the English language will be a factor in your success. As a constructive criticism, your posts look like English is your second language, and any Anglophone market requires good English grammatical construction :-) All the best.
Posted by jmccormac, 07-06-2009, 07:43 PM
You will be right at the bottom of the market in section that has the highest attrition rate of hosters. The market, in general, is quite mature and the mega hosters such as Godaddy, account for the bulk of the market. The smaller hosters may appear small globally but may well account for a major section of their country's hosting market. The major unknown in most markets is the number of the country code domains on a hoster's nameservers. The domains per hoster breakdown of hosters as of 01/July/2009 is: 1 domain hosted: 723627 2-9 domains hosted: 259256 10-99 domains hosted: 184919 100-999 domains hosted: 35376 1000-9999 domains hosted: 4355 10000-99999 domains hosted: 733 100000-999999 domains hosted: 110 >= 1,000,000 domains hosted: 11 Those figures are based on com/net/org/biz/info/mobi/asia/ie/co.uk/eu/de domains hosted and 1,208,387 hosters tracked. Many of the hosters with less than 100 domains would be web developers who provide hosting services to their clients. Around the 1000 domains hosted, the hoster generally has to decide whether to concentrate on web development or hosting services provision. I haven't done any calculations on the operational lifetime of hosters in the sub-1K market but it would be the most competitive part of the market as that's where the bulk of the new entrants appear. Regards...jmcc
Posted by ProfJ, 07-06-2009, 07:49 PM
To answer your first question: Yes, the web hosting market is saturated. It's beyond saturated. Knowing this, it's still not impossible to turn a profit. As others have pointed out, the key to doing this often lies in finding a specific niche. Usually, it's good to pick a niche that reflects your own interests and/or skillset. Also, you should know that web hosting companies do not usually generate very much income (if any) for the first 6 - 12 months. Attaining a monthly income of 2000 pounds is doable within a year or two, though.
Posted by dungho, 07-10-2009, 02:00 AM
Many thanks to all of you! I want to resell web hosting, but I worry about how can I supply 24/7 phone support service to my customers. I am at starting. Could anyone suggest me please?
Posted by Jacob Wall, 07-10-2009, 02:02 AM
Yes, it's possible, but it's very hard. It took me two months to get my first client, but then again, I took the hard route. Don't expect to make 2000 pounds/month for a longggg time, maybe 2000 pounds a year within a year.
Posted by njoker555, 07-10-2009, 02:14 AM
you don't have to provide 24/7 service - you could have particular hours of availability because as a new company, without investing a lot of money, you most likely won't get the staff you need to be on the phone lines 24/7.
Posted by ldcdc, 07-10-2009, 04:19 AM
As you'd be just starting, this would probably end up being a costly offer. There may be companies that offer this with their reseller account (one I know of would be Cartikahosting), but even so, it's unlikely to be cheap. Lots of companies survive or even thrive without phone based support, some of them being quite big. I suppose yours could too. There are things that don't make sense when you're just starting, unless you also have a huge advertising budget guaranteeing a significant number of customers in a short amount of time.
Posted by dungho, 07-10-2009, 04:28 AM
Many thanks! Please be informed that I am in Vietnam and my customers in the UK. How can I support them without 24/7 phone line?
Posted by bikster, 07-10-2009, 05:08 AM
Well, there are many methods of support that hosts use. Most buy a support system like Kayako or WHMCS (a complete billing management and support solution) and respond to tickets that customers send them whenever they need help. This is by far the most common form of support from what I have seen so far. You can use live chat systems. This is a very good method of support: it is real-time and no prices for international calling and whatnot are incurred. I've yet to see a host offer this, but you can try offering Skype support. This principle is also based on the live chat principle. As long as your customers have Skype, they can get voice support from you. But if they don't, you can always purchase a phone number that can be located in the US/UK from Skype.
Posted by 2012Panda, 07-17-2009, 12:16 PM
Since your a developer, your should talk around to partner with other companies. You might want to open up a portfolio to show to them.
Posted by dbbrock1, 07-20-2009, 02:36 AM
Hello, All very common questions from anyone trying to get into web hosting. First off: No, the hosting industry is far from saturated. I have seen this question asked a number of times over the past 7 years and the replies are always the same. The market is not saturated. You just need to target the right markets. One market that is very competitive is the budge style web hosting. You will want to stay away from this market if you are new. In actuality, the number of people who want websites will only increase overtime. So if anything, there are more customers looking for web hosting now than there was 5 years ago. As far as the phone support thing, you dont need to offer it. In fact, many people are fine with just helpdesk support. The best part about helpdesk is that you dont have to sit at your computer every minute. You can just login once every 2 hours to do the tech support tickets. Its really not that much work at first.
Posted by ldcdc, 07-20-2009, 06:32 AM
I suspect that a large part of that is going to happen in the developing countries, which may pose a bit of a problem due to the language barrier. Every hosting company owner I know that has started again, says that growing the business is not as easy as it was back 5 or 10 years ago.
Posted by hostbite, 03-18-2010, 06:34 AM
To earn that sum of money you will probably need to gain almost 1000 clients if you offer your services for 4-5$ / per month and that your prices are 500-1000$
Posted by josephgarbett, 03-18-2010, 10:04 AM
Why not offer your services to a companie? That way you can get paid for doing what you like?

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