United Internet acquires Austrian webhosting market leader World4You
Montabaur, August 20, 2018. United Internet AG has reached an agreement with the owners of Austrian webhoster World4You concerning the 100% acquisition of the company by United Internet subsidiary 1&1 Internet SE.
The move will strengthen the international activities of United Internet’s Business Applications segment pooled with 1&1 Internet SE, a company held jointly by United Internet (66.7%) and Warburg Pincus (33.3%).
Based in Linz, Austria, World4You GmbH was founded in 1998. With over 100,000 customers and more than 250,000 domains, the company is the market leader for webhosting in Austria. The product range of World4You (www.world4you.com) comprises domains, e-mail solutions, websites, webhosting and servers, as well as security solutions.
It is planned that World4You will remain an independent company and continue to develop the Austrian market.
The Austrian webhosting and cloud applications market has made good progress over the past few years. The market is heavily fragmented and dominated by competition between national companies and a few international players.
Ralph Dommermuth, CEO of United Internet, explains the motivation for the takeover as follows: “The acquisition of World4You will enable us to extend our lead in the European hosting and cloud application business and significantly strengthen our market position in Austria. We are therefore continuing our strategy of complementing organic growth with targeted acquisitions.”