4 Apr 2012

Phone app company increases overseas revenue

7:05 am on 4 April 2012

Moa Creative, a small New Zealand smartphone application development company, says about half of its revenue is coming from overseas contacts following a lucky break early in 2011.

The company, which employs 11 people and was founded in 2010, had a breakthrough when a large technology agency in New York, looking for a partner who they could contract their application development to, discovered them online.

Business development manager Andrew Malcolm says the US company gave them job and as they were happy with what Moa had done, they then signed the Auckland-based company up for a year.

Mr Malcolm says a lot of their work has come out of that initial contact and now about half their annual revenue comes from overseas contracts.

He says that, in an increasingly competitive marketplace, it is important for Moa to work with larger companies, as they have a profile that helps get further work.

In New Zealand, Moa has developed applications for large clients that include AA Tourism, Three News and Sky City.

Mr Malcolm says, during the developers' downtime, they have created a platform called App La Carte, which allows restaurants to create their own smartphone applications.

Wendy's New Zealand has already signed up for the platform and Mr Malcolm says the long-term goal is to focus on that template and expand it into North America as quickly as possible.