The small business landscape in Australia consists of a large number of very small companies.
According to a recent report by Datamonitor, SMEs account for more than 95% of the companies in Australia. There are 624,010 SMEs. The vast majority employ fewer than 20 people:
- Approximately 66% of SMEs employ between 1 and 4 employees.
- Another 29% of SMEs employ between 5 and 19 people.
In Australia banks are going after the small business market and competition for this segment is expected to heat up. Why? Because just as in the United States and many other parts of the world, small businesses are growing in number and becoming a more significant force in their countries’ economies. For instance, the number of SME banking deposits between 1999 – 2003 grew faster than deposits by large companies, increasing at a compound annual rate of 15.8% growing to US$94.7 Billion at the end of 2003.
A few words of explanation are in order about the terminology “SMB” and “SME,” both of which you will see used here on Small Business Trends. The two acronyms mean the same thing, more or less. They simply are used in different parts of the globe. “SMB” stands for small and midsize (or sometimes medium) businesses, and typically is the term used in the United States. “SME” is an acronym for small and medium enterprises. SME is the terminology of choice in much of Europe, the U.K., Australia and Asia.