Powershop leads NZ rankings in Tech Fast 500
Powershop takes sixth place and 2Degrees comes seventh.
Friday, December 02 2011 || News || BY Alan Wood, Businessday.co.nz
The index, which was announced in Hong Kong today, ranks the top 500 tech businesses according to their revenue growth over the past three years, and sets the standard for high growth technology businesses in the Asia Pacific region.
Leading the list of New Zealand businesses was online electricity retailer Powershop, which was ranked sixth on the index with 5280 per cent revenue growth, closely followed by mobile phone network 2degrees, which came seventh with 3762 per cent growth.
They achieved the highest and second highest rankings for New Zealand companies in the Fast 500's 10-year history. Last month, Powershop and 2degrees were the first and second ranked businesses on the New Zealand Deloitte Fast 50.
In total, 37 New Zealand companies made this year's Deloitte Technology Fast 500 Asia Pacific index, with eight of those ranked in the top 100. New Zealand had by far the highest representation per capita.
Canterbury had representation with internet-based NZ Tax Refunds, founded by Cilla Hegarty, ranking number 30 on the list after showing 1401 per cent revenue growth.
In the total list, Auckland-based businesses led the way with 17 making the index. There were 10 from Wellington, Canterbury had five, Waikato four, and the Bay of Plenty one.
Also in the top 100 were software firm Midas Infomedia at (46), internet based Xero (51), internet based 2Talk (80) and Tomizone (92) and telecommunications/networking firm Ensid Technologies (96).
Leader of the New Zealand Fast 50 programme and Deloitte partner Matt McKendry said the placings showed New Zealanders are able to foot it with the best entrepreneurs in the region.
''It's interesting that nearly half these New Zealand businesses are online based, and are using communications technology to overcome our relative isolation,'' McKendry said.
In terms of the geographical spread of companies on the Tech Fast 500, the largest number of companies came from Taiwan with 133, followed by South Korea with 96, China (86), Australia (53), India (43), New Zealand (37), Japan (34), Singapore (13) and Malaysia (5).
The top-ranked business was Chinese online grocery retailer Yihaodian (The Store Corporation) with 19,218 per cent revenue growth.
