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The New York Stock Exchange decorated for the first day of trading for the GoDaddy IPO on April 1, 2015.

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By Ariel BogleAustralia2015-07-29 06:54:18 UTC

GoDaddy, one of the world's largest web hosting companies and domain name registrars, launched formally in Australia on Wednesday.

Although it has had a localised online offering since 2012, the company hopes to better serve Australia's more than 2 million small businesses by having an Australia-dedicated team, James Carroll, head of international business and development at GoDaddy, told Mashable Australia.

GoDaddy has around 13 million customers across 42 markets wordwide, but the company would not disclose the number of Australian users.

However, Carroll said the company's services have proved extremely popular Down Under. Even before GoDaddy had set up its site to support Australian payments and domain names, it saw Australian customers using the U.S. site and even paying U.S dollars to access the platform.

The number of local users has been increasing, and it's because of this growth the company is taking the next step and opening local operations, Carroll said.

Along with Australia-tailored products, services and prices, customers can also expect hyper-local domain names like ".sydney," ".melbourne" and others to be immediately available as they are rolled out. The call centre serving Australian customers will be based in Phoenix, Arizona for the moment, but that could be revisited as they settle into their new home.

While there are plenty of platforms small business owners can use to build an online presence, from Facebook to Shopify, Carroll hopes customers see GoDaddy, which went public in the U.S. in April, as an opportunity to build their own brand, rather than operating in someone else's marketplace.

Although it was known in the U.S. for many years for its provocative Superbowl ads, Carroll said the company would not be taking a similarly controversial marketing approach Down Under.

"Those commercials were at a point in time," he said. "Now there's been a major shift inside the company … we're all about helping small businesses."

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Source: Web-hosting service GoDaddy opens up shop in Australia