31 Jul 2024

Cloud software sector and its economic potential

From Nine To Noon, 9:40 am on 31 July 2024
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Photo: befunky.com

A new report finds the cloud software sector is taking on some of the country's biggest export earners in terms of value to the economy.

Also known as Software as a Service - or SaaS - the report suggests it earned $3.6 billion dollars in revenue last year.

This compares with $ 2.8b earned by the wine industry and $900m for the gaming industry.

Some of the best known cloud software businesses in New Zealand include accounting firms, Xero and Hnry; online giving platform Pushpay and leading geoscience software business Seequent.

Seequent has an estimated revenue of more than $240m. It was sold to the global infrastructure engineering software company Bentley Systems, in 2021 for $1.4b.

Kathryn speaks with Chief Executive of Seequent Graham Grant, who says New Zealand has the potential to become a global SaaS powerhouse; and author of the 2024 Insights from the Cloud report, Bruce Jarvis.

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