Web hosting consolidation continues as one.com makes another acquisition

One.com
(Image credit: One.com)

Danish web hosting firm group.One, better known by the name one.com, has acquired Finish web hosting company Zoner Oy for an undisclosed fee. The purchase is part of a wider attempt by one.com to become the industry leader in Northern Europe.

Zoner Oy has gained a strong reputation within Finland for its first-rate service, boasting more than 17,000 customers. The organization will continue to operate out of Vantaa, a city to the north of the capital Helsinki, and CEO Toni Claren will remain as the head of the company.

“Zoner has shown impressive growth over recent years. Together with their attractive product portfolio, it makes them a very interesting investment for us”, said Stephan Wolfram, CEO of group.ONE. “The Finnish market is in many ways similar to the other Northern European countries where we already lead the market for hosting and web services. We therefore see this acquisition as an excellent opportunity to further strengthen regional leadership by establishing a local presence in Finland”

Buying spree

one.com’s latest acquisition should come as no surprise given that the firm has set about making strategic purchases for some time now. Since being acquired itself by private equity fund Cinven in early 2019, one.com has acquired six other organizations in the past year across Norway, the Netherlands and Denmark.

The acquisitions are all part of an ambitious growth plan for one.com, one that has built upon its domestic success, where it has received praise for offering support in local languages and continuing to deliver user-friendly products and services. The company has also benefitted from the coronavirus pandemic, seeing huge growth as businesses turn to digital solutions.

More broadly, one.com’s consolidation push has been mirrored in the wider web hosting space for a few years now. In such a competitive industry, mergers are often required to stay afloat given that margins are so low.

Barclay Ballard

Barclay has been writing about technology for a decade, starting out as a freelancer with ITProPortal covering everything from London’s start-up scene to comparisons of the best cloud storage services.  After that, he spent some time as the managing editor of an online outlet focusing on cloud computing, furthering his interest in virtualization, Big Data, and the Internet of Things.