GoDaddy now offers .cn domain names

GoDaddy, a technology provider dedicated to small businesses, has brought the total number of domain name extensions it offers to 421 with the addition of the "dot cn" (.cn) domain name to its lineup. This is the country code for China and represents a growing Internet audience looking to get online.

There are more than 1.6 billion Internet users across China*, more than 600 million of whom are in the country. China has registered more than 16 million .cn domain names** but only also has a 50.3%** Internet penetration rate, showing more room to grow.

"Having the ability to offer cross-border commerce with China is important, especially in the Asia Region," said Roger Chen, Vice President of Asia, GoDaddy. “We are pleased to offer the .cn domain name to small businesses to address this growing need.”

“GoDaddy is one of our most important partners; we are looking forward to expanding our .cn domain name business worldwide with GoDaddy,” said CNNIC President & CEO, Xiaodong Lee.

The addition of .cn domain names is part of a larger Asian expansion for GoDaddy. The company recently announced its launch in 11 Asian markets. GoDaddy is now supporting 10 languages and 14 markets across Asia, including: Hong Kong (English and Traditional Chinese), Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia (English and Malay), Philippines (English and Filipino), Singapore (English and Simplified Chinese), South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam.

In addition to providing domain names, GoDaddy offers associated services such as email addresses linked to the domain name, website creation, and Office 365 provision.

Interested?

Read the TechTrade Asia blog posts about GoDaddy's Asian expansion and about its globalisation strategy

Register a .cn domain name through GoDaddy

*InternetStats.com – November 15, 2015
**CNNIC 37th Statistics Report

GoDaddy is focused on building big, beautiful business identities for small businesses

Irving.

GoDaddy may have started out as a domain name provider, but it now much more. GoDaddy CEO Blake Irving explained that the company's vision is focused on shifting the emphasis to the small businesses which typically to make up the majority of companies in an economy.

According to Irving, small businesses are an underserved yet giant opportunity, even the ones so small that may only have a staff strength of one. "Small businesses are treated as enterprises or consumers and nobody really builds tools for them," he explained.

The business landscape has also changed. Where a simple website and an email address would have sufficed in the past, today's business is expected to maintain a social media presence, complex websites, understand search engine optimisation, market through email and more.

In addition to helping people "get a great name", which is still 52% of the business albeit shrinking in terms of its contribution, GoDaddy has also expanded its support of small businesses to helping them with business identities, from email addresses connected to the domain name to website creation. GoDaddy has also been an Microsoft Office 365 partner since early 2014.

Customer support is a priority for GoDaddy, which understands the small business owner is unlikely to be tech savvy and may need more hotline help for relatively basic tasks. The company has a team of 3,400-plus people in India, China, Europe and the US whose job is to resolve customer problems, no matter how long it takes. "Technology companies don't tend to talk to customers. If you're a giant company and you've got millions of dollars to spend you have a security guy who is yours. With a small business you're left to visit a website for help," Irving said of the typical tech vendor. "(Small businesses) just want to talk to somebody in the local language."

GoDaddy started looking outside of the US fairly recently. "Three years ago we were in English with US currency and US payment types. In 2016 we rolled out to Asia, and for the rest of 2016 we're going to MENA," Irving said. "Regardless of what country you enter, people want to talk with someone. The need for super simple software is everywhere. The problems are pretty homogeneous."

Localisation, Irving shared, includes offering local numbers, local language versions of a website, as well as the "nuanced differences" required by markets including the need to ensure that the imagery on the website truly represents that market.

Today, GoDaddy manages 61 million domains and has 13+ million customers, hosted in data centres around the world including its only Asian data centre in Singapore. Twenty-six languages are supported, as are 44 currencies, in 53 markets. The company has simplified Office 365 installation to a single setup screen against 22 from Microsoft, and can populate a small business' DNS details to create a related email address in under 100 seconds - a task that used to take an IT person 24 hours, Irving noted.

"GoDaddy is the natural on ramp for people to get their business online. We will educate the market on our brand and build awareness for the services we can deliver; we're here to stay," he said. "We will offer locally relevant products, that help small businesses grow and succeed."

Interested?

Read the TechTrade Asia blog post about GoDaddy's Asian expansion

GoDaddy launches in 11 Asian markets

GoDaddy, a global technology provider dedicated to small businesses, has launched in 11 Asian markets, bringing its suite of cloud-based products and expert customer care to millions of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) across the region.

With the launch of 11 new markets, GoDaddy is now in a total of 10 languages and 14 markets across Asia, including: Hong Kong (English and Traditional Chinese), Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia (English and Malay), Philippines (English and Filipino), Singapore (English and Simplified Chinese), South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Following the launch in Asia, GoDaddy is now helping small businesses in 53 markets, supporting 26 languages and 44 currencies. GoDaddy has more than 4 million international customers.

“Asia is home to one of the largest, most vibrant small business communities in the world,” said GoDaddy CEO Blake Irving. “As Internet growth and smartphone adoption continue to accelerate across the region, it’s important that these businesses are able to create strong digital identities that will help them achieve their goals and compete online. GoDaddy is committed to providing the products and services that will enable Asia entrepreneurs to easily start, confidently grow and successfully run their own ventures.”

Small and medium enterprises account for over 97% of all enterprises and employ over half of the workforce across APEC economies*. At the same time, more people in Asia are utilising the Internet and connected devices to stay informed and make purchases. Seven in 10 (72%) of people in Hong Kong access the Internet daily and 74% use a smartphone**; 81% of people in Singapore access the Internet and 88% use a smartphone**. Overall, Internet growth across Asia has grown 1,319% between 2000-2015***.

With such trends in progress, the impact of creating an online presence for small businesses can be significant. A RedShift Research survey of 1,000 very small businesses in Hong Kong and Singapore that built websites for their ventures found that 45% saw their business increase by 25% or more.

Localised, purpose-built products

GoDaddy offers a suite of cloud-based products in the local language and currency to help businesses find the perfect domain name, create a beautiful website, find new customers, and improve business productivity. Specific product highlights include:

Domains

• As the world’s largest domain registrar with more than 62 million domains under management, GoDaddy offers the largest top-level domain (TLD) inventory in each of the new Asia markets. GoDaddy’s extensive inventory includes country-specific domains for Asia markets (e.g., .sg for Singapore and .tw for Taiwan). 
• GoDaddy also offers .cn for mainland China to help facilitate cross-border commerce between China and neighbouring markets. 
• GoDaddy has an aftermarket platform as well, where users can buy and sell domain names. 

Website hosting

GoDaddy hosts more than 10 million websites across more than 55,000 servers around the world and is hyper-focused on delivering fast, reliable and easy to use Web hosting.

The company offers options such as Managed WordPress Hosting, an optimised platform for customers who require performance and scalability. All of the technical hosting aspects are managed for customers including setup, software updates, network security and daily backups.

Build a website

GoDaddy Website Builder provides a do-it-yourself design tool for building a full-featured website. Website Builder gives customers hundreds of customisable designs to choose from, integrates social media, and allows quick and effortless changes.

Business applications

Productivity tools make the business of business easier. GoDaddy provides customers with professional email connected to domain names and productivity solutions, enabling them to communicate and collaborate more effectively.

Personalised customer care

A dedicated team of customer care experts who understand the needs of small business owners complement GoDaddy products. GoDaddy offers local language customer care and a direct phone number in each of the new Asia markets, enabling customers to get personalised assistance as they create their digital presence.

*Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation
**Google Consumer Barometer
***Internet World Stats