Powershop rapid Australian growth leading the way into UK and Europe
Online electricity retailer Powershop is growing rapidly in Australia, with customer numbers expected to overtake New Zealand in the next few months.
The growth has led to the Wellington-based company looking at expansion into the UK and Europe.
In the past year, the company signed up 33,000 new Australian customers and now has a base of 46,000. .
About 56,000 New Zealanders use Powershop but chief executive Ari Sargent said Australian customers would outnumber New Zealanders within the next two months.
The expansion into Australia in December 2013 created about 50 new jobs within the Wellington IT development team and Masterton call centre.
Predicted international market growth would see about 50 further jobs created, Sargent said.
The state of Victoria had a competitive electricity market like New Zealand, where customers shopped around and swapped power companies.
This was part of the reason Powershop was able to get into the market but it was the backing of its owner Meridian Energy, that opened doors.
Meridian owns wind farms in Australia and Powershop leveraged from this, providing the technology and brand to sell into that market, he said.
Powershop was now taking what it was learning from the Australian market and exploring bigger opportunities in Europe and UK.
"It's hugely satisfying to take an idea from New Zealand and turn it into a platform getting noticed overseas," Sargent said.
The future of Powershop overseas lay with licence agreements, which could be used by utilities to launch the brand in their own markets.
This way the company would not take on any energy market risk when entering a new market, Sargent said.
The electricity industry was hugely different from country to country but one thing Sargent found was the same - "people just don't like their power companies. Dissatisfaction is high and persistent almost everywhere".
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