National Export Awards 2008
National Export Awards 2008
Appen wins global export award
Appen, the world's leading provider of high-end text, speech and language technology resources, has been honoured as the Prime Minister's Australian Exporter of the Year. Appen had earlier won the overall NSW Premier's Exporter of the Year across all categories in recognition of its outstanding export achievements in the last year.
The Company won its category in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in both the Premier's NSW Awards and the Australian Export Awards.
Congratulating Appen, the Prime Minister, the Hon. Kevin Rudd MP said the company was an outstanding achievement by an individual Australian enterprise in international business. The Prime Minister selected Appen as the overall winner from the 13 Australian Export Awards category winners.
Appen success reflects the strength of its many-faceted growth, including its 50% increase in export volume over the previous year, the strength of its client base and its technological innovations.
Appen has multiplied the value of its exports nine times since 2001, while consistently exporting between 91% and 98% of its products and services. It provides services in more than 80 languages, has offices in seven countries and expanded its operations into 20 more countries, a total of 60. Employment, both in Australia and overseas, has grown at a comparable rate, while investment in R&D also grew by 50% during 2007/2008.
Appen technology is found worldwide in call centres, mobile phones, voice-activated automotive controls and in defence, intelligence and law enforcement agencies. Its products and services are used by the whole speech and language technology industry and are acknowledged as the world's gold standard for innovation, effectiveness, cost-competitiveness and speed of delivery.
Blue-chip multinational organisations such as Alcatel, IBM, Microsoft, Nokia, Nuance, Siemens, Sony, Telstra and Toshiba constitute the bulk of its commercial client list while its non-commercial clients include the US, UK, and Australian governments. This year, Microsoft awarded Appen its prestigious Preferred Vendor Status.
"We are very pleased to receive such recognition of our efforts," said Appen's Director Chris Vonwiller. "We continually work to anticipate industry needs, to which end we have ramped up our R&D very significantly and successfully migrated into the new area of text processing.
"This industry is continually opening up new opportunities to us, which makes the future look very exciting."
For further information, please contact Chris Vonwiller on 02-9468 6338.