Xero more than doubles Australian customer base

New Zealand accounting software vendor Xero has announced significant growth in its worldwide customer base today, with the company now having 211,300 paying customers on its books as of September 30, which is up 89 percent on the 2012 figure of 111,800.

Broken down by country, New Zealand remains the Kiwi vendor's largest market, with 85,500 customers, up 49 percent; Australia is catching up rapidly, though, with Xero now having 79,100 customers across the Tasman Sea, up from 32,500 at the same time last year; the United Kingdom fell just short of doubling its 15,100 customers in 2012, with the company now having 30,100 customers.

The rest of the world, including the United States, experienced 141 percent growth and rose from 6,900 to 16,600.

Although Australia is slightly behind Xero's homeland in customer terms, it is now Xero's largest market by revenue. Of its NZ$70.6 million annualised committed monthly revenue, Australia makes up NZ$30.2 million, followed by New Zealand at NZ$23.9 million, the UK on NZ$10.2 million, and the rest of the world making up NZ$6.3 million.

"We now have 79,100 paying customers in Australia, almost two and half times the previous year," said Xero Australia managing director, Chris Ridd, in a statement. "We are seeing an entire industry coming together, made up of accountants, bookkeepers, financial advisers, add-on developers, cloud integrators, and even banks, recognising the opportunity to connect via the cloud and drive productivity gains for small business."

"All of these factors make us confident about the continued popularity of Xero online accounting software in Australia against the incumbents."

Xero also doubled its global workforce to 584 employees over the past twelve months, 90 of which are based across Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra, Perth, and Brisbane.

The company said that its operating revenue for the first half of FY 2014 would exceed NZ$30.3 million, which is says is up 84 percent on last year, once the revenue from its discontinued Xero Personal product is removed from the figures.