NZ high tech companies hold their own against Asian counterparts

New Zealand high growth technology businesses are becoming strong contenders in the Asian region, with the largest ever number of Kiwi companies making it to the 2015 Deloitte Technology Fast 500 Asia Pacific Index.

With 54 companies being chosen, this sets a new record for Kiwi representation and outpaces last year's 51 companies.

The index, announced in Hong Kong, 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 is Auckland-based transcription service Transcribe Me, ranked 18th on the regional index with significant growth of 1,818%.

It is followed by workforce management software company GeoOp and cloud-based retail software platform Vend, which come in 41st and 83rd respectively.

Darren Johnson, Deloitte Private partner, says the 54 companies from New Zealand out-performs regional heavyweights South Korea (50) and Japan (34), and is only one company shy of India (55), on the index.

"This year's record Kiwi representation, with New Zealand companies accounting for over 10% of the entire Asia Pacific index for the second straight year, is continued evidence that our technology companies are thriving on the world stage," says Johnson.

"As we saw in the Deloitte Fast 50 unveiled last month, a growing number of Kiwi companies have embraced disruptive technologies; with many in business to help other companies better navigate these technological changes," he says.

Auckland-based businesses lead the Kiwi contingent on the list with 24 companies represented, while there are 13 from Wellington, six from Hamilton and five from Christchurch.

In terms of the geographical spread, the largest number of companies were from China (139), followed by Taiwan (86), Australia (80), India (55), New Zealand (54), South Korea (50), Japan (34), Singapore (1) and Singapore/Hong Kong (1).

Revenue growth across the index averaged 415% this year, up from last year's 405% average.

The software sector saw a substantial increase this year of 35 companies to 181 and yet again leads the industry sectors for the third year in a row. The sector also includes our overall 2015 winner Devsisters Corp.

The hardware sector, on the other hand, remained in second place overall with 100 companies in the top 500, although down by 30 companies from 2014. This marks the third year in a row that the sector has declined.

Clean technology saw a large increase and in 2015 has 48 companies represented in the rankings, up from 13 in 2014.

Life sciences which includes biotech, pharmaceutical and medical devices saw an increase this year to 42 companies up from 33 in 2014. The media (87) and communications (42) industries both saw a decrease this year.