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SA is grappling with an economic contraction, indebted consumers and lacklustre job creation.
It is easy to stare into these monsters of negativity and forget what innovation and luxury SA has brought to the world.
Finweek takes a look at a number of these concepts and products that are standing SA in good stead overseas.
Paypal - Global payment service
South African-born entrepreneur Elon Musk started X.com in the late 1990s. This was one of the world’s first online payment systems and created when the internet was still in its infancy.? Musk invested $10m of what he earned from the sale of another tech start-up, called Zip2, in 1999 to start X.com.
PayPal was formed when X.com and Confinity merged in 2002. eBay acquired the company in the same year for $1.3bn.
Today, PayPal has 169m active users in 203 markets processing payments in 57 different currencies. The company
generated $8.3bn in revenue last year, according to its latest annual financial statements.
About 4bn transactions worth $235bn were processed by PayPal last year. Of these, 1bn, worth about $46bn, were made via mobile phones. Some 52% of the company’s revenue is generated outside of the US.
WooThemes - Driving the globe’s online sales
Grabbing a gap in the online retail market, WooThemes is now used by 29% of all online shops. The company provides an e-commerce plugin for WordPress-designed websites. About 98% of its revenue is generated outside of South Africa.
“We provided an e-commerce solution for WordPress that was hugely in demand, and historically under-catered for,” says Mark Forrester, co-founder of WooThemes. “With WordPress powering around 25% of the internet, it’s a
massive global audience of ?potential customers.”
Selling digital products allows for “hockey-stick growth” if you tap into the right market and it ensures very low cost of sales, he says.
WooThemes was established in July 2008 and it had an international customer base from the first day, Forrester says, adding that the reason for this is the company servicing the WordPress community.
The company’s largest geographic contribution to sales is the US, followed by the UK, Australia and Canada, according to Forrester. WooThemes boasts more than 1m WooCommerce stores around ?the globe.
Amarula - From the Limpopo veld to the rest of the world
Amarula celebrated its 25th year of existence last year. The iconic local liquor, made from the fallen fruit of the marula tree, is counted as one of the world’s top liquor brands.
“The brand is sold in 103 countries worldwide,” says Tessa de Kock, a spokesperson for Distell, which owns the brand. “It is the number two cream liqueur in the world and, in defiance of the decline in sales of the category, Amarula continues to grow support. This is the case, not only in newer markets but in some of its very well-established export destinations such as Germany and also Brazil, where it is the brand leader.”
Distell ascribes the affinity for Amarula liqueur to its unique African roots and part of it to its not-for-profit Amarula Trust that boosts research on elephants. Epic advertisements featuring the massive mammals are also enshrined in many locals’ minds.
“The African provenance and relationship with elephants strike an immensely positive chord with consumers locally and abroad,” De Kock says.
The brand is featured on the list of Impact Databank Top 100 Premium Spirits, as one of the leading global spirits trademarks, according to De Kock. Amarula is also the 32nd most popular spirit brand in the global travel retail market, according to market researchers, IWSR, she says.
The marula fruit is harvested by locals around Phalaborwa in Limpopo and pulped at a plant in the town before it is transported to Stellenbosch where it is distilled. The distilled product is aged for two years in oak barrels before it is bottled, according to Distell.
This is an excerpt of an article that originally appeared in the 8 October 2015 edition of Finweek. Buy and download the magazine here.
