It’s Not Easy to Dethrone the Firstcomer

Located in Central Africa, Rwanda is a landlocked country quite different from its neighbors. More developed than its surrounding countries, Rwanda has a vibrant digital scene that’s rapidly growing.
During our trip to Rwanda, we met with Willy Liambi, CEO of Programage Limited, to take a look at the developments in the shared hosting market of Rwanda. Programage Limited company deals with domain name registration, hosting, web design, and software development, both mobile and desktop. The company has been in the business since 2013, partnering with the biggest websites in the country, and knows a thing or two about the digital scene of the country.

Rwanda in Numbers

Relatively small in size, Rwanda has a population of 13 million people. Although the GDP of the country is relatively low, the country is quite developed compared to its neighbors, because of low levels of corruption. The country has a great human development index, and because of this Rwanda can invest more in more fields, and more investments in innovative solutions.

Currently, there are 5,000-10,000 .rw domains registered in the country. Internet growth is rapid but is mostly for mobile phones. Installing fiber optics into people’s houses are in the process, with unlimited data. With the development of the market, there is a class of people now who are used to unlimited bandwidth, and there are companies that start to cater to it. Because of this, many internet providers see huge potential for digital growth in the country. Several providers are also thinking of providing free hosting, free domains, and free website builders to motivate people to go online.

Support Language

Currently, shared hosting offers business hour support for their clients. “For a small number of customers it’s expensive to maintain 24/7 support,” mentions Willy. There are three official languages in Rwanda, Kinyarwanda, English, and French, and the support is offered in all. Kinyarwanda, however, is dominant.

Pricing and Payments

The pricing of hosting can be a bit costly. Currently, it is around $30/year if the client can set it up themselves. However, if they are going to go for the main ISP providers and big market players, the offering starts at $30/month. “We at Programage have our own servers, so we are able to collocate at data center facilities so we are able to provide low prices for clients, but it’s still expensive,” says Willy. “Of course, people prefer lower prices, but the issue is the people not understanding the difference between hosting locally and hosting internationally. When you give the customer an .rw domain, they for some reason think that the quality will be lower, although it doesn’t matter: it’s just a name. In fact, if you host your website here, you don’t have to send your request all the way to the US.”

For payments, Momopay and credit cards are the most popular methods. PayPal is popular among more tech-savvy people who have experience in working with brands like GoDaddy, Wix, etc.

Laws and Regulations

Compared to neighboring markets, Rwanda is different: most neighbors host in the USA, while in Rwanda the government and local companies do their best to ensure that hosting is kept in Rwanda, and the servers are kept in the country.

Government policy is hosting government-related services within the country. “If it’s a government project, and if you don’t have your servers, the government won’t award you the project, so you need to have servers in the country.”

Currently, the technology hallmark of the country is located in Kacyiru, where most of the data centers of the country are located.

Website Builders in Rwanda

According to Willy, web developers don’t like website builders. “There is this tendency among devs: if you do something hard you feel good about yourself. If you are a good programmer, use an interface to draw things they don’t like.” When it comes to clients, understanding of website builders is still low. “There are two types of clients: some that want you to do something for them and some who want some knowledge to do the thing themselves. For these people, we can give them website builders and they make a website themselves. However, the problem is that they don’t understand how they can use it. But as the understanding of this tool grows, the users will also grow in numbers.” Willy continues, “Website builder is good because you can scale it. But for our market, it’s not yet possible to ask them to use website builders, because they need a lot of education about it. When you provide a lot of noise, sometimes it happens. In a country like Rwanda, where people are very conservative, if people like you, they’ll like you for a really long time. So it’s not easy to dethrone the firstcomer, so if you are a firstcomer, people have an emotional attachment to you. And when people are used to a product, it is harder to sell them something new.”

Wrapping Up

Watching the digital developments of Rwanda is exciting. As the country is taking rapid steps towards digitization, it is becoming an untapped resource for shared hosting providers. We can’t wait to see what’s coming next for the country in terms of Internet accessibility and digital development, but everything looks promising.