30th June 2014
Leading aviation technology company Phitek Systems achieved double top-honours at this year’s Auckland Export Awards.
Phitek edged out four other high-growth companies in two fiercely contested categories, to emerge as the winner of both ‘Exporter of the Year’ – Total sales under NZD $25 million (sponsored by insurance giant QBE) and ‘Commercialisation of Innovation for Export’ (sponsored by Baldwin’s Intellectual Property).
The 2014 event included a total of 27 exporting companies nominated within seven key sector categories. Finalists were assessed according to their export capabilities and achievements within the various New Zealand-based multi-sector business environments.
The event is sponsored by Air New Zealand Cargo and ExportNZ with the support of the highly successful ‘Hooked on Exports’ motivational campaign. ExportNZ is a division of BusinessNZ with the aim to assist New Zealand businesses in achieving their exporting goals.
The Hooked on Exports campaign celebrates New Zealand exporters in their quest to boost exports from 30% to 40% of GDP by 2025.
The world-first product that secured Phitek’s wins is a universally-compatible, magnetic media connector for airline passenger seats. The connector eliminates damage to headphone jack pins along with the high cost to replace them.
This ground-breaking technology will be rolled out by several long-haul Middle East airlines which will equip over 300 seat units per aircraft from 2015 onwards.
The judges said that Phitek’s innovative technology and components established their reputation for high performance noise cancellation headphones and “the company reinvented itself to focus on in-seat peripherals integrated with entertainment systems which they supply to many of the world’s airlines”.
According to Phitek’s CEO, Roy Moody, the success of the business stems from Phitek’s “ability to carefully consider the needs of airlines at the interface between the passenger and the in flight entertainment as well as our ability to create clever cost-saving solutions to meet these needs”.
The awards ceremony was attended by Prime Minister Hon. John Key, Auckland Mayor Len Brown and Minister for Economic Development Hon. Stephen Joyce.
About Phitek
Phitek Systems Ltd is the world’s leading supplier of audio enhancement and noise rejection technologies within the commercial aviation market.
Delivering on innovation and invention, Phitek provides its key global customers with creative, state-of-the-art analogue and digital signal processing designs for audio enhancement and noise rejection.
Phitek’s proprietary Active Noise Rejection (ANR™) technology (including its Remote Jack Unit SmartJack™ ANR™ platform) is now specified by many major airlines and sourced by all four of the major manufacturers of in-flight entertainment systems.
Phitek is located in Auckland with operating offices and production facilities, and worldwide sales locations in San Jose in California and the UK.