By Amal Kumar

Market Opportunity

Survival in today's competitive marketplace demands looking beyond domestic shores. However, global expansion can often run into language and trade barriers and, especially in some emerging markets, rapid changes in both government and trade policy. The Australian and New Zealand markets, however, offer all the benefits of a developed, wealthy market without significant trade or language barriers, making them markets of excellent opportunity for businesses from the US.

With a combined population of around 25.5 million people earning a combined $64,873 (GDP Per Capita) per year, Australia and New Zealand have a significant purchasing power in the international market. The region's market opportunity is further boosted by a GDP of almost $1 trillion, low inflation, and an unemployment rate under 5% according to the Australian Govt. Department of Foreign Affairs, making Australia and New Zealand an ideal market for businesses looking to expand their operations overseas.

Best Industry Segments

Generally, both Australia and New Zealand tend to be high importers of information technology (especially cutting-edge technology) and services. Consequently, data from the US Department of Commerce shows the top industries for export by US organizations in both countries are medical equipment and high technology, and software/IT services.

With both the Australian and the New Zealand dollar gaining ground against the US dollar, imports have become cheaper for both consumers and business in the region, and it seems that both currencies are set to gain ground against the US dollar in the near future as well.

Regulatory and Tariff Landscape

Both Australia and New Zealand are signatory members of the WTO, so trade tends to be free and tariffs low. The United States and Australia have signed a Free Trade Agreement (the AUSFTA), which has eliminated 99% of all tariffs. Talks for a FTA are on between the United States and New Zealand, but in the interim exporters to the region can expect tariffs to be generally 14% or lower, plus an additional Goods and Services Tax.

On the Regulatory landscape, Australia, being geographically isolated, has a fairly stringent quarantine system for food, farm machinery or anything that could be potentially harmful to the environment. Consequently, the US Department of Commerce warns that exporters who do not take this quarantine system into account can incur some financial loss. A thorough due-diligence of the regulatory and quarantine requirements of products being exported to Australia is recommended. New Zealand, on the other hand, has no such trade barriers.

Online Marketing Opportunities

Australia and New Zealand boast a combined online population of 18.7 million people, which is an impressive 75.7% penetration rate, data from Internet World Stats shows. Over the past seven years, the internet population in the two countries has also grown a combined 420%, significantly higher than the global growth rate of 290%. Organizations wishing to hold a local top level domain (.com.au in Australia, .com.nz in New Zealand) should keep in mind that while New Zealand has no restrictions for registration of domain names, only businesses registered in Australia can legally use the .com.au domain name.

The online marketing opportunity is also large and growing. According to data from BuddeComm, as of 2008 almost half of all Australian SMEs were using the internet to sell their products and services, with total online advertising spending touching A$1.8 billion in 2008.

Online Language Preferences

While the vast majority of internet users in Australia and New Zealand are fluent in English, speaking it as a first language, the countries do have a fairly diverse immigrant population. To this end, while English is the de facto national language and the most common language spoken, data from ethnologue.com suggests that languages like Italian and Chinese are common as well.

Search Engine Profile

Google is the uncontested top search engine in both Australia and New Zealand, claiming an impressive combined 77% of the market share. Next comes Yahoo! with 9%, and MSN is in third place with about 6.5%. The remaining 7% of the market, a fairly large chunk, is split between local and regional search engines like Senesis, Altavista Australia and Web Wombat. Any organization wishing to improve its search engine rankings is recommended to submit its web pages to each of the search engines.

Summary

Australia and New Zealand are both well-developed, quite wealthy markets with a trade climate that is free and potentially very profitable. Any organization looking to take its business global should take advantage of the wealthy, internet-savvy, English-speaking population, and begin to build an online marketing campaign in the region. Based on the current and future potential of this market, Global eMarketer ranks Australia and New Zealand a Tier I market for global online expansion.

About the Author: Amal Kumar is a Global Markets Research Analyst at Global eMarketer (GeM). GeM is an international business development and marketing consulting firm that helps business expand globally from preparation, to implementation through global online campaign management. For more information contact information[at]globalemarketer[dot]com, or visit our website at Global eMarketer.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Amal_Kumar