This is the latest in Localogy’s Website Windup series. It examines the ongoing evolution and advancement of SMB-focused website builders, including acquisitions and feature expansion to enhance product bundles.
Wix is on a roll. After several moves over the past six months — including rebooting Wix Answers, new eCommerce & payments functionality, and acquiring Websplanet — the company has surpassed GoDaddy as the world’s largest web hosting company in market cap. GoDaddy has long held this position.
Specifically, Wix now has a market cap of 15 billion, which edges past GoDaddy’s $14 billion, according to TechRadar. The market cap boost is tied to Wix’ share price growth in light of strong Q2 results. Among other things, it reported $236.1 million in revenue, which is up from $185.4 million in Q2 2019.
In fairness, GoDaddy also had a strong Q2 with a 20 percent month-over-month jump in share price to $83.50 as of last week (an apples-to-apples timeframe with Wix’s figures above). GoDaddy’s share price is down to $76.65 as of this writing, which is part of a broader selloff in tech stocks over the past few days.
Pandemic Divide
Both companies are notably on the advantaged side of the pandemic divide. As we continue to examine, Covid-19 has a polarizing effect on business where some sectors are hurting (events, brick & mortar business) while some thrive (eCommerce, gaming). Web hosting falls squarely in the latter camp.
As businesses scramble to stay alive, it often means pivoting towards — or upping one’s game in — digital presence and distribution. So companies like Wix that have expanding ownership of the website stack (hosting, website building, payments/commerce, CRM, etc.) have become the landlords of the new normal.
“Our business has seen an immense uplift in demand in recent months, driven by the rapidly increasing importance of having an online presence,” said Wix CFO Lior Shemesh in a public release accompanying Q2 earnings results. “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.”
The New Product Cycle
But it’s not just about being inherently well-positioned. The winners in this era so far have risen to the occasion by pivoting fast and repositioning (or accelerating) product road maps. Exemplars so far include Shopify in eCommerce; while Walmart and Target have adapted quickly to necessary retail transformation.
Wix joins that list in the website world, for lots of the moves mentioned above, and more that we can expect to see in the coming months. For more color on its recent moves and upcoming trajectory, consider attending Localogy 20/20 where Wix’ Paul Donlan will speak on a panel discussion about CRM.
