Mauritius: Glance into the Shared Hosting and Domain Market Industry

“Icy Evolution & Tidalwaves” is the leading provider of web hosting in Mauritius since 2010, which specialises in web hosting, domain registration, web application development, and SMS marketing. As written on their official website, the company is trusted by more than 2700 companies including many of the Top 100 businesses on the island as well as offshore companies. Accordingly, Site.pro team met with Tewin Sham, CEO of “Icy Evolution & Tidalwaves” to discuss shared hosting and domain market and get some insights into how things are managed in Mauritius.

Mauritius in Numbers

Republic of Mauritius is a relatively small island country in the Indian Ocean, with the total area of 2040 sq. km and a population of about 1.3M. The island is of volcanic origin and is almost entirely surrounded by coral reefs. When travelling around Mauritius, it is hard not to notice the amazing beauty of the country: the amazing white sandy beaches with turquoise waters, rivers floating through the lush green spaces, stunning waterfalls that flow into crystal-clear lakes, and high mountains that reveal a breath-taking view.
In addition to the amazing charm of the nature, what really strikes the eye is the cleanness and tidiness of the country. Indeed, people living in Mauritius really love their homeland and take care of it by not littering, because throwing a cigarette but, a paper or a bottle on the street can cost one a fine of RS3000.

Web Hosting and Domain Market

There is growing number of websites for Mauritian business and, as mentioned by Tewin, just within their company they have more than 3000 websites and domains hosted. If speaking about other businesses and agencies, which usually have a website to present their services or goods, the number of domain names would be from 20 to 50K.
When speaking about website hosting, it can be claimed that about 10 years ago everyone was hosting outside of the country mostly using USB hosting services, but now, the behavior is changing. Over the years many local businesses started moving their website and even email infrastructure to local companies, with one of the main reasons being the provision of local support.

Business Communication and Customer Support

Mauritius is a multicultural country, where 68% of residents are of Indian origin, 27% are Creole, 3% are Chinese and 2% of residents are of European descent. It is not surprising, therefore, that there are many languages spoken in Mauritius, and even though English is the official language of the island, business matters are also carried out in French and Mauritian Creole.
Support is provided 7 days a week during working hours and also late hours, which is until 8PM. If the ticket is received after those hours, support will be provided the next morning. When speaking about the language of customer support, there is a clear distinction: support tickets are usually received and handled in English and French, while Creole is spoken and used when support is provided by phone or through life chats. Other languages spoken by Mauritians include Bhojpuri, Tamil, Telugu, Hindi-Urdu, and even Chinese.

Payment Gateways and Money Matters

In Mauritius, people mostly pay directly by internet banking. The most popular internet banking application is “Juice”, which allows people to pay for food, fuel, bills and all other necessary things by using one’s phone. Other ways of paying for products or services are credit cards of the local banks and “PayPal”. The only drawback with “PayPal” is that it converts everything in Mauritian rupee (MUR) to USD before processing, thus people are required to pay some currency exchange fees.

Website Builders in Mauritius

When asked about website builders in Mauritius, Tewin admits that nowadays, most businesses do use website builders and tend to use open source CMS (Content Management System), like “Wordpress”, or “Shopify”. There are also some other website builders that are used and offered to people together with hosting plans, and the website import feature is one of the best solutions provided by various website builder.
As a matter of fact, website builders are becoming more popular, especially among younger businesspersons, who are more IT literate. Indeed, knowledge of how to use website creation tools and the ability to create a website are in great request. Accordingly, more and more people are looking for website builders instead of the traditional way of going to developers or web agencies to create their personal sites, but of course, depending on the difficulty of the website structure, there might be a need to address professionals or developers.

Cloud or On-Premises?

In Mauritius, people prefer on-premises solutions, because they provide more flexibility in many reasons, and in case of any issue, it is easier for specialists to take a look and quickly find the problem. Nevertheless, people understand that Cloud, of course, has its own advantage: it is safer and cheaper with no additional expenses on software, while on-premises requires many updates and upgrades.

Profitable Advice and Working Lifehacks

During their time in the market, both Icy Evolution & Tidalwaves and Site.pro CEOs shared some important lessons they learned and discussed the best way of doing business:

1. It’s not only about success — you need to fail several times and still keep trying. This way you gain knowledge about things you should and should not do;
2. Place emphasis on brand and services — it is a key of success. People get to know the name of the company, recommend you to other people, thus making you more popular among other companies in the same industry;
3. Do not focus only on one group of customers or one market, because it might be exactly the other group of customers or other market that would make “much noise” and speed up your growth;
4. Better late, than never;
5. Implement big projects as incremental processes. Work on the big project, but don’t pay all of your attention to that and don’t keep the small ones in waiting. Distribute your time and efforts effectively for all things to be completed.

In Conclusion

Mauritius is generally considered to be the ideal gateway destination to get closer to nature, which is even called the “Pearl of the Indian Ocean”. What is more, not a lot of people know, but Mauritius was actually home to a large flightless bird called dodo, which became extinct by the end of the 17th century. Indeed, Mauritius is one of the islands that amazes you in many ways: magnificent natural landmarks, cooperation between races, and a well educated population with highly experienced professionals. Nowadays, the island is going through some more changes, thus with the greatest possibility in the near future it will surprise us even more!