South African website building startup VIGO has announced a partnership with Asian domain registrar Webnic, under which VIGO’s website building software will be offered to Webnic’s client base across South East Asia, mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Through the partnership, Webnic will make use of VIGO’s website building software to enable clients to not only register domain names, but also create responsive websites and e-commerce platforms for their businesses.
Webnic is ranked among the top 50 domain registrars in the world, operating in 60 countries; and boasting a reseller programme which consists of more than 3,000 resellers.
VIGO founder and chief executive officer (CEO) Carl Wallace has previously told Disrupt Africa the startup’s goal is to help small and medium enterprises (SMEs) prosper; with Wallace reaffirming this goal following the new partnership.
“The core focus of VIGO is to provide SMEs in developing countries with the tools they need in order to grow their businesses and by entering the Asian market, we can enable millions of business owners to get their products and services online, to market to a global audience,” said Wallace.
“We had to find a partner in Asia who shares our passion for helping small business owners, while knowing they have sufficient knowledge of the local market to effectively roll out a project of this magnitude – we most certainly found that, and more, with Webnic,” he said.
In preparation for Asian uptake, VIGO has been translated into various languages commonly spoken across Asia, including Mandarin and Indonesian, with Japanese, Taiwanese, Cantonese, and others to be added soon.
Wallace said the startup is also open to translating the software into various African languages, if the demand is there and would spur uptake.
“Africa is the mobile first continent and our solution is still strongly targeted to appeal to this growing market,” said Wallace.
“VIGO has always taken pride in being fully mobile and accessible to anyone on any device and if we could increase accessibility by offering the platform in various languages, then it is something we would like to commit to.”
