New company data shows Xero's Australian user base grew from 109,000 accounts in March this year to 147,000. The figures show Australians make up just under half of Xero's total user base of more than 300,000 customers worldwide.

The latest figures will please investors, who have bought into the growth story from founder and chief executive Rod Drury despite continuing losses and no profit tipped for at least a further 18 months.

Mr Drury said his team was focused on a "land grab" growth strategy, particularly in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Xero has raised over $NZ250 million ($226 million) in growth capital, some from early angel investors but the majority from listing its shares. The startup has delivered a 425 per cent share price increase in 2013, peaking at $43 on the ASX early this year, which earned it the "Apple of accounting" moniker from investment bank Credit Suisse.

While still well above its initial offer price, the stock was pulled back over the past few months, trading at around $21.30 on Friday.

The company has touted plans to list in the United States as early as next year, and Mr Drury said keeping investors happy would be a priority in the years before it posted a profit. This meant taking on criticism of those cynical about its long-term value.

"The fun bit of doing this as a public company is that everyone, literally everyone, has an opinion," Mr Drury said. "But I don't really care what other people think. We just get on and do our own thing. It's worked so far."

Time to sell

Select Equities analyst Mark Southwell-Keely has a blunt assessment: He says Xero's stock is significantly overvalued, and the executive team should sell the company now.

"Even half of what the stock is priced at now is way more than it's worth," Mr Southwell-Keely said.

Mr Southwell-Keely said Xero was growing well but that new cloud-based products from competitors such as MYOB, Reckon and Intuit would drastically alter the market.

"The market is pricing Xero essentially on the basis of a hypothetical of an addressable market, but the market will change so much even in two years I'd say there is little to no chance of those predictions being accurate," the analyst said.

Mr Drury said he had no plans to exit and was building the business for the long haul, with confidence in its current strategy.

"We know what we're doing, we've shown that so far. We're in fantastic shape and only at the beginning of the journey," he said.

An obsession with growth has been a feature of Mr Drury's entrepreneurial career, which included shutting down two earlier companies that were not growing fast enough.

The first was a document management software startup he closed in 2002. The second was an initiative to lay an internet cable directly linking Australia, New Zealand and the United States.

He had success selling email service Aftermail to Quest for $US45 million in 2006.

Xero's new user data was announced at the company's annual convention in New Zealand on Friday morning. Australian managing director Chris Ridd also announced partnerships with Telstra, insurer CGU and the Australian Taxation Office at the conference.