Accounting software firm Xero surpasses one million users worldwide

Xero chief executive Rod Drury. Photo / Jason Oxenham

Wellington-based accounting software maker Xero has reached the milestone of more than one million subscribers worldwide.

Chief executive Rod Drury said the milestone coincided with the firm's 10th anniversary of being a listed company and will be celebrated with teams around the world.

"It's a massive achievement and it means a lot of risks have been taken out of our business," he said.

"It's nice to be able to celebrate both occasions at the same time."

Drury said he'd be celebrating with hot cross buns for staff.

In less than two years Xero has doubled its subscriber numbers and added close to 300,000 in the past year alone.

"It was so hard getting our first 10,000 customers. I remember in the first year getting to 1300 customers, and that was a big deal, so to pass a million is just amazing," Drury said.

More than one third of New Zealand small businesses are using Xero's software.

"We are the most online small-business country in the world - no one has anywhere near that sort of market share in any other market. New Zealanders should be very proud; we are building a truly world-class company from this part of the world."

The firm is on track to make $1 billion revenue, Drury said.

"There are still only probably a few million businesses around the world using cloud accounting of the hundreds and hundreds of millions of small businesses so the wave is only really just starting.

"We've established ourselves as a global player so we'll look back at this and it will feel like the early days."

Artificial intelligence and machine learning innovation is the next focus for Xero.

In the past 12 months, the firm has processed more than $1.2 trillion of global economic activity.