Wix edges past GoDaddy to become world's biggest web hosting company

(Image credit: Wix)

The pandemic has led to increased demand for web hosting and best website builder software as more people look to start their own small businesses online during this time of economic upheaval.

This has led GoDaddy's share price to rise by 20.2 percent over the past month and its stock is currently trading at $83.50 at the time of writing.

While Q2 was a very strong quarter for the web hosting company founded back in 1997, the website builder Wix had an even stronger second quarter during which time it brought in $236.1m in total revenue compared to $185.4m during the same period last year.

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Unlike GoDaddy that is a web hosting company that also offers a website builder, Wix is a website builder first though the company does include free web hosting with all of its plans.

Surpassing GoDaddy

At the beginning of this year, Wix's stock was trading at a little over $127 per share. However, over the course of the last six months its stock has risen to $291.37 per share and the company now has a market cap of $15bn surpassing GoDaddy's market cap of $14bn.

In a press release announcing its second quarter results, CFO of Wix, Lior Shemesh explained how the company plans to invest further in marketing in an effort to further expand its user base, saying:

"Our business has seen an immense uplift in demand in recent months, driven by the rapidly increasing importance of having an online presence. We added a record 9.3 million users and 346,000 net premium subscriptions in the second quarter, reflecting this strong demand and our ability to meet the needs of our users. We are responding to this continued heightened demand by increasing our investment in marketing, which based on our historical data, will drive continued collections and revenue growth in the near future."

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After working with the TechRadar Pro team for the last several years, Anthony is now the security and networking editor at Tom’s Guide where he covers everything from data breaches and ransomware gangs to the best way to cover your whole home or business with Wi-Fi. When not writing, you can find him tinkering with PCs and game consoles, managing cables and upgrading his smart home.