Hostinger Might Be the Fastest-Growing Hosting Provider

Lithuanian web hosting company Hostinger recently reported achieving €110.2 million in revenue in 2023, a 57% increase over the previous year’s figure. The company said the growth was due to an increase in users and cost savings from the internal use of AI.

Hostinger said it ended 2023 with 57% more customers than at the end of 2022, with total billings rising 61% year-on-year. With the latest figures, Hostinger has achieved EBITDA profitability for the first time. EBITDA, which stands for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, is a measure of reporting income that is sometimes criticized for overstating profitability.

The company attributed the surge in sign-ups to its introduction of new AI features. For instance, its AI-powered website builder allows users to build a website “in less than a minute.” In chatbot style, it accepts written prompts and can generate search-engine-friendly blog posts, images, and more.

Hostinger also introduced an AI assistant for customer service, which helped cut operational costs. The company said that without the AI assistant and other internal automations, it would have needed to hire about 112 customer support specialists to meet the increased demand. Instead, staffing levels were roughly comparable to the previous year despite the massive user growth.

Hostinger also said it made many behind-the-scenes upgrades in 2023, such as introducing an in-house content delivery network (CDN) and improving hosting speed.

Hostinger also opened a new data center in Paris, France. Out of the 150 countries it serves, its most active users in the previous year came from France, the US, India, Brazil, Indonesia, the UK, Spain, Pakistan, Mexico and Colombia.

Hostinger positions itself as a European rival to American market leader GoDaddy. While the Financial Times has named Hostinger as one of the fastest-growing European tech firms for five consecutive years, the €2.4 million in EBITDA profits it earned in all of 2023 remains distant from the $313.0 million in EBITDA that GoDaddy reported in the first quarter of this year alone.

Hostinger CEO Daugirdas Jankus celebrated his company’s achievements but said: “While we may look like a big business in our region, we still have a long way to go in the global market.”