Xero hits milestone in Britain

Cloud accounting software firm Xero has notched up 250,000 customers in Britain, where it faces competition from local incumbent Sage Software and United States rival Intuit.

It is the fourth major milestone for Xero this year after it topped

250,000 subscribers in New Zealand, 500,000 in Australia and a million customers worldwide.

Analysts’ eyes are increasingly focused on its progress in the United Kingdom, which is a large and contested market.

Intuit – which still holds an iron grip on the US accounting software market – has been increasingly focusing its expansion plans on the UK and Australia.

It announced this year that it had won more than 100,000 customers for its Quickbooks service in each country.

Closer to home, Xero continues to face competition from Australian rival MYOB, which has

600,000 small-business customers, more than half of which have switched to its cloud service.

Xero announced its customer milestone in Britain yesterday, hours ahead of the opening of its Xerocon conference in London, where it expects to host 2000 accountants, bookkeepers, and business partners.

During the past few days, Xero’s share price has settled above $30 for the first time in more than three years. Its market value has risen by more than 50 per cent this year to top $4.2 billion.

But its shares remain below the heights above $45 that they reached during a sudden spike early in 2014.

Forsyth Barr analyst James Bascand said Xero’s British customer milestone indicated it was continuing to track well there.

He forecast Xero would have more than 300,000 subscribers in Britain by the end of March.