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Small Business at a Glance

IDC, a subsidiary of International Data Group:
  • Defines small businesses as firms with less than 100 employees and midsize businesses as firms with 100 to 999 employees; small and midsize businesses (SMB) are classified as firms with less than 1,000 employees.
  • Does not include homebased businesses in its definition of small businesses.
  • Defines small-office/home-offices (SOHOs) as small businesses with less than 10 employees that have income-generating home offices.


Source: IDC,2005

Small businesses:
  • Represent more than 99.7% of all employers
  • Employ half of all private-sector workers and 39% of workers in high-tech jobs
  • Provide 60% to 80% of the net new jobs annually
  • Pay 44.3% of total U.S. private payroll
  • Produce more than 50% of nonfarm private gross domestic product, or a GDP of roughly $6 trillion
  • Are 3% franchises

Source: SBA, "Small Business by the Numbers," June 2004

There are roughly 130 million U.S. workers employed by small businesses.

Source: SBA, "Small Business Economic Indicators for 2003," August 2004

 
Small businesses account for:
  • 52.6% of all retail sales
  • 46.8% of all wholesale sales
  • 24.8% of all manufacturing sales

Source: SBA, "Small Business Economic Indicators for 2003," August 2004

97% of all U.S. exporters of goods are small businesses.

Source: SBA, "Small Business by the Numbers," June 2004

Small businesses produce 13 to 14 times more patents per employee than large patenting firms.

Source: SBA, "Small Business by the Numbers," June 2004

 
2005 Small Business Breakdown by Numbers of Employees:

2005 Small Business Breakdown by Number of Employees

Source: IDC, "U.S. Small Business 2005-2009 Forecast," 2005

 

The average annual revenue of a small business is $3.6 million.

The average annual revenue of a small business with a website is $5.03 million.

SMALL BUSINESS ANNUAL REVENUE


Source: IDC, "Web Site Development in U.S. Small Businesses," June 2004

More than 48% of small businesses increased their annual revenues in 2003.


The Small-Business Market
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