Xero has narrowed its first-half loss and posted positive pretax earnings for the first time, and announced it will delist from the NZX in favour of the ASX in February.
The cloud-based accounting software firm said it will keep its headquarters in Wellington but shift its listing across the Tasman to encourage a broader range of analyst and broker coverage and increase its relevance "to a more diverse range of large investors".
The move was in the best interests of the company and its shareholders, it said on Thursday.
Xero's net loss was $NZ21 million ($A19 million) in the six months ended September 30 from a loss of $NZ43.9m a year earlier, it said in a statement.
Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation was $NZ5.4m compared with an earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) loss of $NZ25.9m a year earlier. Operating revenue jumped 37 per cent to $NZ187.8m.
Xero's shares last traded at $NZ34.05 and have soared 95 per cent this year.
The company first listed in June 2007 and on Thursday said subscribers had risen to about 1.2 million.
"We're still building the business for massive scale," chief executive Rod Drury told BusinessDesk.
"We're pretty happy. Things are going pretty well. The numbers are moving north."
Gross margin widened to 80 per cent in the first half from 75 per cent a year earlier and Xero said that further improvement was expected.
The company recorded positive operating cash flow of $NZ6.1m in the first half, a $NZ19.4m improvement on a year earlier.
The company reiterated that UK customers rose to 253,000, from 212,000 six months earlier.
In North America subscribers rose 43 per cent to 110,000. It has more than 518,000 subscribers in Australia and more than 271,000 in New Zealand.
"We're excited to enter this new phase of self-sustainable growth," Mr Drury said. "We're still in the early stages of delivering cloud services to the many millions of small businesses around the world."
