“The decline in the NZ dollar against the US dollar is helping offset some of the disruption in the US market,” Shanahan said.

Another key advantage for the tech sector is that software and services have avoided Trump’s tariffs.

And, outside of an occasional tilt at Hollywood, there has been no sign the US President plans to extend his taxes on imports beyond the current focus on physical goods – but even there, Trump (with one eye on cost-of-living issues) has exempted generic pharmaceuticals from tariffs, which is good news for New Zealand’s Douglas Pharmaceuticals and AFT.

Shanahan says Tin200 companies are now heftier, too, which positions them better to negotiate global chaos.

This is the first year that two Tin200 firms – Xero and Fisher & Paykel Healthcare – have topped $2 billion in revenue, while 40 had turnover above $100 million, compared to 19 last year.

Shanahan also points to pushes into markets outside the suddenly tariff-heavy US – particularly China, India, the rest of Asia and Europe.

Some of these predate Trump’s second term. He points to the manufacturing facility that Fisher & Paykel Healthcare opened in China in July last year (the firm also has a $250m expansion under way in East Tāmaki), plus the factory that Rakon opened in India.

Shanahan says “growing commercial sophistication” was another factor, citing payments company Windcave’s rapid expansion in the US last year that underpinned a $100m jump in revenue (by Tin200’s estimate of the privately-held firm).

Rich-lister, founder and owner Andy Cullen partially shielded Windcave from tariff headwinds and got close to his largest market by reincorporating his company in the US (it’s now registered in Arizona) and opening offices in Phoenix and New York.

Windcave also expanded locally, opening a new plant in Auckland, with about 400 staff, for producing its payment terminals.

Although cloud software stars like Xero continued to enjoy strong growth in FY2025, high-tech manufacturing grew fastest, increasing its exports by 11% as firms from the giant Fisher & Paykel Healthcare (which saw 16% revenue growth to $2.02 billion) to fast-growing start-up Syos Aerospace (which landed a $66m drone deal with the UK Government) surged.

But the highest-profile hardware contender was the Kiwi-American Rocket Lab as it increased its number of launches from Mahia and Virginia and dramatically expanded its satellite business.

Its growth is accelerating. Sir Peter Beck’s firm reported US$242m ($428m) revenue for its June quarter, a 36% jump. Rocket Lab is now hiring many more people in North America than New Zealand, but it continues to expand at pace in New Zealand; it was recently advertising for 54 new staff in Auckland.

Where does tech stand?

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s ranking of the top export earners for the year to March 2025 was:

Unlike the Tin200, the ministry and Stats NZ have no catch-all “technology” category for exports.

Stats NZ reported $2.2b in software exports last year as a subset of $3.5b in “ICT [information and communications technology] software and services exports”.

It said “high-tech manufacturing” generated $7.9b in export receipts. Other tech-related export categories included “ICT consulting and development services” ($629m), ICT support services ($323m) and “hosting and IT infrastructure services” ($334m).

Analysis of Stats NZ figures by industry group NZTech found a total of $11.4b in exports from “technology” in 2024.

The tech missed out

Another Tin200 quirk is that with its focus on offshore earnings and New Zealand-founded firms (even after they’re sold), its rankings include some firms that are now only partly Kiwi or high-tech and miss out large swathes of the local tech scene.

For example, Fisher & Paykel Appliances has been owned by China’s Haier since 2012 and has moved all of its manufacturing offshore to China, Mexico and other locations. It remains in the index by dint of maintaining an R&D crew in Auckland.

The focus on export revenue means a clutch of our largest tech players, all with multibillion-dollar market caps – Spark, Chorus and Infratil (owner of One New Zealand and half-owner of CDC Data Centres) – are not part of the Tin200.

2degrees is out for the same reason, notwithstanding the healthy export receipts it pulls in through supplying ground station services to Elon Musk’s Starlink and other offshore firms.

Self-styled “edu-techs” Kami, Education Perfect and the $1b+ private equity-valued Crimson – all New Zealand-based, global players – are also absent.

But BeingAI, which has a notable percentage of its business outside high-tech in a stable that spans (or used to span before this year’s asset sell-off) schools to a courier business to software and AI consultancy, does make the cut.

NZTech – which does include telcos and allcomers – says the total number employed by the tech sector inside New Zealand last year was 119,520 – or a 2100 reduction, with Wellington hit hardest as a number of Government agency tech projects were cancelled or paused.

Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald’s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.