Austrade Expands Awards Program to Acknowledge Online Retail Expo
Fruit Ninja game developers slice through competition to take home inaugural Online Sales Award
The Australian Export Awards (AEA), one of the longest running business awards in the country, last night awarded the first ever Online Sales Award to Brisbane-based video game developer Halfbrick Studios. The award, presented by PayPal Australia, represents a significant milestone in acknowledging the importance of innovative online strategies in business in today’s borderless economy.
Co-presented by Austrade and the Australian Chamber of Commerce, the AEA has honoured 791 Australian businesses across many industry sectors, highlighting the innovation of Australian business to look further than their own borders and help shape the identity of Australia within the global marketplace.
Now in its 52nd year, the AEA last night recognised for the first time, the efforts of online and digital businesses who are exporting internationally according to growth, marketing and strategy.
“Austrade’s establishment of the Online Sales Award demonstrates the significance of ecommerce in today’s retail industry,” said Emma Hunt, PayPal’s Director of Small Business.
“We’re proud to present the new award to Halfbrick Studios, a shining example of Australian innovation in today’s consumer driven economy. At PayPal, we have been supporting Australian online businesses for almost 10 years and we’re thrilled to see these businesses being increasingly recognised for their efforts to strengthen the Australian economy and drive cross-border demand,” Hunt continued.
Halfbrick Studios, the studio behind iOS mega-hits Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride, was last night’s inaugural winner of the AEA Online Sales Award. Founded in 2001, the local development studio has become one of the most well-known indie developers in the world. With a huge international audience embracing Halfbrick Studios’ iOS games, it was recognised for its contribution to the global video game market and fostering of talent in the Australian game development industry.
With Australia leading the G20 in being the most e-trade ready , last night’s awards event reinforced the need for Australian businesses to be accessible to cross border trade. A recent global study (including Australia) conducted by PayPal and IPSOS revealed that 50 per cent of respondents who shop online purchase goods cross border, and generally spend double those who shop locally.
“At PayPal, we’ve been working with over 110,000 Australian businesses to embrace cross border trade, connecting over 157 million digital wallet holders in 203 countries and over 100 currencies.” Ms. Hunt said.
“Halfbrick Studios is just one example of a business that is successfully engaging in cross border demand, taking advantage of a sector that is expected to grow from $5 billion to $16.1 billion by 2018 . With established demand for Aussie products from countries including Germany, US, China, Great Britain, New Zealand and Hong Kong, there is no better time for Australian businesses to tap into the global opportunity and grow their business into new markets,” Ms Hunt concluded.
About PayPalAt PayPal, we put people at the center of everything we do. Founded in 1998, we continue to be at the forefront of the digital payments revolution, processing almost 10 million payments for our customers per day. PayPal gives people better ways to connect to their money and to each other, helping them send money without sharing financial information and with the flexibility to pay using their PayPal account balances, bank accounts, PayPal Credit and credit cards. With our 157 million active digital wallets, we have created an open and secure payments ecosystem people and businesses choose to securely transact with each other online, in stores and on mobile devices. PayPal is a truly global payments platform that is available to people in 203 markets, allowing customers to get paid in more than 100 currencies, withdraw funds to their bank accounts in 57 currencies and hold balances in their PayPal accounts in 26 currencies. In September 2014, eBay Inc. announced the planned separation of eBay and PayPal into independent publicly traded companies in 2015. More information about PayPal can be found at
www.paypal.com and
https://stories.paypal-corp.com. More information about the planned separation of eBay and PayPal can be found at update.ebayinc.com.
About PayPal Australia PayPal has been operating in Australia since 2005 and now has over 5.5 million active customer accounts. As the preferred payment partner for more than 110,000 Australian merchants PayPal is an option for Australian businesses to transact online and offline, from sole proprietors and developers to established large merchants.
For more information, please contact:
Edelman
Jake Wheeler
02 9291 3344 / 0432 795 479
Edelman
Tracey Yong
02 9291 3367 / 0405 488 490
PayPal Australia