Xero concluded its half ended September 30 with its second net profit. The company also said it passed another milestone, 2 million subscribers, during the recently completed half, an increase of 30 percent over the number of subscribers at the end of the first half of fiscal 2019.The New Zealand-based cloud software company this week reported net income of about $839,000 for the most recently ended half, compared to a loss of roughly $17.9 million a year earlier. Revenue reached approximately $213.2 million, an increase of 32 percent from last year’s corresponding period.
Xero also continued its success in the United Kingdom, now its second largest base of subscribers with 536,000 and by far the fastest rate of increase, up 51 percent over a year ago.
In their review of the half, chair Graham Smith and CEO Steve Vamos said it had taken 10 years to reach the first million subscribers, but only two-and-a-half years to hit 2 million.
Australia continued as the largest market with 840,000 subscribers, rising 28 percent year-over-year. New Zealand is now No. 3 with 367,000 subscribers at the end of a half, up 13 percent. North America had 215,000 subscribers, an increase 21 percent. Subscribers in the rest of the world increased by 52 percent to 99,000.
There were also some significant changes in executives. The company named Nicole Reid as acting chief people officer last month, re-establishing the position. She joined the company in April as executive general manager, organization development. Rachel Powell, previously chief customer, people and marketing officer from November 2017 became chief customer officer last month. She was the previous chief people officer.
