Small and Mid-Size Business (SMB) Overview
From: http://www.allbusiness.com
The SMB Market is vast and growing¹
- 99.7% of all U.S. firms are considered small businesses (<500 employees) by the U.S. Small Business Administration.
- 89% of U.S. companies employ 20 people or less.
- SMBs employ half of the US workforce.
- The Small Business market is growing steadily, with growth rates of up to 23% from 1988 to 2002.
- Home based businesses accounted for $102 billion in annual revenue in 2005.
- Non-payroll spending by U.S. small businesses will be $4.7 trillion in 2005, and will reach $5.3 trillion in 2008.²
- SMBs will spend $1.6 trillion on the largest category of small business expenditures, core business services, including legal, accounting, insurance, and shipping and mailing.
- U.S. IT spending by SMBs was $320 billion in 2004, representing 44% of all U.S. IT spending.³
- IT spending is projected to increase to 48% of all U.S. IT spending in 2005.
- 79% of business research begins with a search engine.†
- 64% of business users go to search engines to research B2B purchases.‡
- Small business owners are over eight times more likely to be high wealth households.
- SMBs create 65% of America’s net new jobs each year.
¹ United States Small Business Administration.
² VisaUSA Small Business Study as reported in the November 14 issue of BtoB Magazine.
³ Jupiter Research, Small Business Technology Spending Outlook, 2005.
† OutSell 2006.
‡ Enquiro 2006.