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(Last updated: 17 July 2007)
Trends and opportunities
The market
New Zealand is a proven early adopter of new technology products, services, methods and systems. Its competitive strength lies in creative technical innovation and the ability to be rapidly adaptive within a low cost structure. The government is committed to developing information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure and capability.
Overall, New Zealand’s ICT industry strengths include:
- Electronics
- Software applications for the Internet
- Software applications for the telecommunications sector
- Software and hardware for creative industries, such as film production and post-production
The size of the information technology (IT) goods and services sector is estimated at over NZ$12 billion, and the computer services sector alone is estimated at NZ$2.5 billion.
ICT currently accounts for approximately two per cent of the New Zealand workforce, 4.3 per cent of GDP and generates significant export revenue.
The Information Technology Survey by Statistics New Zealand show the industry size of the IT goods and services sector (excluding communication services), for the 2004 financial year, was approximately NZ$7 billion and had increased 0.6 per cent on the 2003 financial year result. The total value of export sales of IT goods and services (excluding communication services) from New Zealand was NZ$576.3 million in the 2004 financial year, a decrease of 14.9 per cent compared to the 2003 financial year.
New Zealand has the key components and characteristics necessary to develop a sophisticated knowledge economy, including:
- An information-intensive market
- The strong presence of value-adding businesses
- Relatively low costs of communications
- An English speaking population
- A history of creative innovation
In world terms, New Zealand currently has:
- The highest ICT expenditure per capita
- The highest growth rate in ICT patent application and registration
- The sixth highest penetration of secure web servers (a key indicator of e-commerce potential)
The ICT sector has been identified as one of the key contributors to future economic growth and international competitiveness of New Zealand. Its challenge in the next few years is to commercialise innovation and grow existing companies into global ICT businesses.
New Zealand is an excellent test-market for US ICT products. The New Zealand the market is compact and closely resembles the larger US market in many areas including the technology sector’s percentage contribution to GDP.
Opportunities
Opportunities exist across the whole ICT sector, especially in following areas:
- IT, Internet and e-commerce services
- Software for niche applications
- Telecommunications products and services
- Security products (hardware and software)
- ICT products and services to government
- ICT products and services to the agribusiness sector (primary industries)
- Public/private infrastructure (health, education, utilities, transport)
- Products and services to film and media
The New Zealand Government has recently announced a program called the Digital Strategy. The Digital Strategy commits NZ$60 million (including NZ$44.7 million of contestable funding) to implement multiple ICT ‘Knowledge Society’ initiatives. In total, the government estimates it will spend up to NZ$400 million on digital strategy initiatives over the next five years.
Competitive environment
The government is committed to pursing policies that foster competition in the ICT market while the policy and regulatory environment produce market incentives for new investment and innovation.
There are over 7700 ICT companies in New Zealand.
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