SMBs boost Internet spend in Germany this year to US$7.3 billion, while advancing e-commerce platforms, reveals AMI studies
NEW YORK--Small and medium businesses (SMBs or commercial companies with up to 999 employees) in Germany are on track to spend US$7.3 billion on Internet-related technologies this year, up some 5% over 2006. In a strong bid to garner more business from the Internet, German SMBs are leading the adoption curve for e-commerce solutions, according to latest studies conducted by New York-based Access Markets International (AMI) Partners, Inc.
“German SMBs are embracing e-commerce web sites more than any other group of SMBs worldwide,” says Jacqueline Atkinson, New York-based Analyst at AMI. “Among Germany’s Internet SMBs, roughly three out of every four of the businesses have already invested in a company web site, of which 41% sell products or services online.”
Germany, similar to other mature markets, has already surpassed the first wave of IT adoption, in terms of implementing the Internet, and is now extending its online capabilities by building e-commerce sites. Among SMBs that currently own a company web site but have yet to adopt e-commerce, 16% indicate plans to implement an online selling tool in 2007.
German SBs (1-99 employees) reported an average annual spending of US$2,800 for web development, hosting and maintenance. MBs (100-999 employees) in Germany, allocated over five times as much, reporting an average annual spending of US$14,500 per firm. Total spend on web infrastructures alone is expected to reach US$4.4 billion in Germany this year.
“As business decision-makers increasingly view IT as a strategic mechanism, SMBs on a whole are placing precedence on Internet-related technologies and are expanding their budgets,” Ms. Atkinson says. “Global spending is likely to reach US$93 billion in 2008, with SMBs in Western Europe accounting for 28% of total Internet spend.”
E-commerce companies in Germany also reported higher average annual revenue in 2006, above companies that did not deploy e-commerce. On average, German SMBs realized 10% of their annual sales revenue from e-commerce transactions, and over 50% of the businesses expected online revenue to increase or stay the same in 2007.
In light of the studies, the number of businesses integrating back office functionalities with web tools is minimal across SMBs. “As German e-commerce SBs and MBs prefer to sell goods through their own company web sites–as opposed to third-party sites, such as eBay and Amazon.com–these SMBs are prime for simplified and budget-conscious solutions to integrate e-commerce applications with ERP, CRM or data mining,” says Ms. Atkinson.
Related Studies
AMI’s 2006-2007 Germany Small Business Overview and Comprehensive Market Opportunity Assessment and 2006-2007 Germany Medium Business Overview and Comprehensive Market Opportunity Assessment studies highlight these and other major trends in the context of current/planned IT, Internet and communications usage and spending. Products and services covered include established and emerging hardware, software, applications and business process solutions. Based on AMI’s annual surveys of SBs and MBs across Germany, the studies track a broad spectrum of issues pertaining to budgets, purchase behaviors, decision influencers, channel preferences, outsourcing, service and support. Also covered are detailed firmographics and critically important technology attitudes and strategic planning priorities. This data points to key opportunities and messaging hot buttons for vendors and service providers seeking to match their offerings to SMB market requirements.
For more information about this study, AMI-Partners, or our global SMB research, please call AMI-Partners at 212-944-5100, e-mail ask_
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
, or visit the AMI Web site at www.ami-partners.com.
About Access Markets International (AMI) Partners, Inc.
AMI-Partners specializes in IT, Internet, telecommunications and business services strategy, venture capital, and actionable market intelligence — with a strong focus on global small and medium business (SMB) enterprises and extending into large enterprises and home-based businesses. The AMI-Partners mission is to empower clients for success with the highest quality data, business strategy perspectives and “go-to-market” solutions. Led by Andy Bose, the firm has built a world-class management team with deep experience cutting across IT, telecommunications and business services sectors in established and emerging markets.
AMI-Partners has helped shape the go-to-market SMB strategies of more than 150 leading IT, Internet, telecommunications and business services companies over the last ten years. The firm is well known for its IT and Internet adoption-based segmentation of the SMB markets, its annual retainership services based on global SMB tracking surveys in more than 25 countries, and its proprietary database of SMBs and SMB channel partners in the Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific. The firm invests significantly in collecting survey-based information from several thousand SMBs annually, and is considered the premier source for global SMB trends and analysis
